Umm, nit-picky, I know, and off-topic, but...
Fermi was in charge of the Manhattan project, but the mandate to pursue the idea came from the U.S. government as a direct result of a letter to President Roosevelt, drafted by a group of physicists headed by Albert Einstein, during WW II. The letter warned that if the Allies didn't get on the ball, Germany would get there first (split the atom) and the war would take a turn for the worse.
Fermi was a brilliant scientist and the perfect man to head up the project, but to credit him with splitting the atom would be inaccurate. The theoretical groundwork done by Curie, Einstein, et al, followed by the combined theoretical and experimental expertise of Feynman, Bethe, and some of the greatest scientific minds of the 20th century, all made it possible. With the massive funding and resources of the U.S. government, as well.
It's unlikely that a private research project could have even attempted something on the scale of Manhattan.
FWIW
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