Tennessee Valley Authority CEO Don Moul will retire July 1, 2026.

Moul notified the TVA Board of Directors on April 3 that he would retire.

“The board appreciates Don’s service to TVA, its employees and the people of the Tennessee Valley region,” Chair Mitch Graves said in a statement. “Under his leadership, TVA has had strong operational and financial performance delivering reliable, affordable, American energy that helps communities across our seven states prosper.”

Moul joined TVA as its COO in mid-2021 and was promoted to president and CEO in April 2025. His tenure has been marked by tension with President Donald Trump, who fired three of the six sitting members of the nine-person board in spring 2025, eliminating the chance of a quorum, then nominated four new members.

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Most recently, Trump had vowed to make Moul’s life “miserable” and issued a memorandum in March directing the board to set total annual individual employee compensation at a $500,000 maximum.

Trump’s dissatisfaction with the TVA spans a few issues. During his first term, he proposed a partial privatization, but Congress was not receptive to the idea. In his second term, Trump wants TVA to expedite nuclear power development and halt coal-fired power plant retirements.

Some people were concerned the nominees would renew Trump’s push for privatization, but they denied any such intentions. (See Nonprofits Warn of Potential TVA Privatization Ahead of Board Hearings and Trump’s TVA Nominees Reject Privatization.)

The Senate confirmed the nominees Dec. 18, and they joined the board Jan. 12, re-establishing a quorum.

On Feb. 11, the board voted unanimously to revoke TVA’s previous decision to retire 11 units at two coal plant. (See TVA Cancels Decisions to Close 2 Coal Plants, Cites Growing Demand, Trump Tone.)

Trump apparently remained unhappy with Moul, however.

When former CEO Jeff Lyash announced in early 2025 that he would retire, Tennessee’s Republican senators worried that his successor would be chosen from within and would not move nuclear development forward sufficiently quickly. The board did promote Moul from within but said an external and internal search preceded the move.

Trump sacked the board chair the day after TVA announced Moul’s appointment.

A 10-K report filed by TVA on Nov. 13, 2025, listed Moul’s 2025 salary at $1,000,923, but it indicates other streams brought his total compensation to $5,710,167.

Trump called this excessive and noted that as president, he is paid only $400,000 a year.

The Tennessee Valley Authority Act of 1933 stipulates that compensation for all TVA employees “shall be based on an annual survey of the prevailing compensation for similar positions in private industry.” Trump’s memo directed the board to, “as appropriate and if consistent with its annual survey, adopt and implement policies” to cap the CEO’s salary at $500,000.

Other large utilities in the Southeast pay their CEOs base salaries in the same range as Moul’s but provide much more in total compensation:

• • Duke Energy CEO Harry Sideris received $13.7 million in 2025; his predecessor, Lynn Good, got $21.3 million and $20.6 million in 2024 and 2023.
  • Florida Power & Light CEO Brian Bolster got $9.2 million and $9.6 million in 2025 and 2024. (John Ketchum, CEO of parent company NextEra Energy, got $24.2 million and $21.6 million.)
  • Southern Co. CEO Chris Womack got $19.3 million, $16.7 million and $14.2 million in 2025, 2024 and 2023.

The head of the TVA is typically the highest-paid federal employee, and during his first term, Trump had attacked Lyash’s multimillion-dollar compensation package.

Lyash, who became CEO of TVA in April 2019, received $10.5 million in total compensation each in 2024 and 2023, his last two full years in that role. He received $6.8 million in 2025.