doug burgum

Birthday: August 1st, 1956

Hometown: Arthur, North Dakota 

Primary residence: Bismarck, North Dakota 

Current role: U.S. Secretary of the Interior

Net worth/salary: At least $340 million as of September 2025 (WealthX)

Education:

• BA North Dakota State University

• MBA Stanford University

Board memberships, affiliations, and roles:

Past roles: 

• Governor, North Dakota (2016-2024) 

• Chairman, Intelligent InSites, (2011-2016) (WealthX)

• Executive, Microsoft Corporation, (2001-2007) (WealthX)

• CEO, Great Plains Software (sold to Microsoft for more than $1 billion in 2001)

• Founder, Kilbourne Group (2006) (WealthX)

• Coordinator, United States Senate (2003-2006) (WealthX)

• Director, The Arthur Companies (2003) (WealthX)

• Partner, McKinsey & Company, (1980-1983) (WealthX) 

Fun facts: 

• In 2009, Burgum received North Dakota's highest honor, the Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider Award, from the then-North Dakota Governor, John Henry Hoeven III, for his business leadership and philanthropic efforts.

History of environmental policy in North Dakota 

• As governor, Burgum oversaw one of the largest oil and gas producing states in the country; North Dakota ranks third after Texas and New Mexico. 

• Signed a repeal of the state’s oil tax trigger, a price-based tax hike that oil industry leaders supported removing.

• Expanded corporate animal agriculture practices. 

• Celebrated coal power and the successful campaign to re-open a large coal power plant, actions concealed by the concept of “innovation, not regulation”, which allegedly innovates the fossil fuel industry to lower emissions. 

• Permitting a harmful multi-billion dollar carbon removal pipe that will go through five states, passed in November 2024. Several North-Dakota based environmental groups  oppose this pipeline, as they are concerned about water resources, potential leaks, and the long-term safety of carbon dioxide storage underground.

Criticizing federal action on climate change 

• In 2021, sued the Biden Administration for its pause of new oil and gas leasing on federal lands.

• Explicitly criticized the Inflation Reduction Act.

• Signed a letter to President Biden calling for more energy lease sales, to expand critical mineral mining and processing; to expedite approval of federal drilling permits; and to undo methane emissions and air quality standards.

Wealth 

• Doug Burgum has a current net worth of at least $340 million dollars, with millions more anticipated to be stored in private trusts for his children. Analysts have said money is a key factor playing into Burgum's relationship with Trump, because he appears to have been modeled in his own image. 

• Burgum and his family reside in a 13,700-square-foot home, which was built using $4 million from special funds generated through oil and gas royalties. Additionally, North Dakota residents have complained about Burgum flying in a private jet at the expense of taxpayer dollars when he was governor. 

Praise 

• North Dakota Senator John Hoeven stated,  “He has been a great partner as we’ve worked to build North Dakota’s energy leadership and in this role can help to not only restore American energy security, but make America energy dominant.” 

• Republican Senators across the country are praising Burgum for reigniting the fossil fuel industry in their respective states. 

• Burgum is responsible for expanding oil access in North Dakota and maintaining fossil fuel dominance in the state. While he says he believes in climate change, he asserts that the solution to the threat comes via unproven carbon-capture technology rather than emissions cuts. 

• Burgum has called federal regulations cumbersome, illogical and an “existential threat” to North Dakota’s energy and agriculture industries. He has assisted the North Dakota State  Legislature in putting aside millions of dollars in the state budget for challenging federal regulations; $3 million alone has been allocated to oil and gas litigation.

• The majority of the country’s major environmental groups and law firms have a negative view of Burgum. 

• “By picking Burgum, President-elect Trump is taking the first step toward unleashing a wave of oil and gas drilling on our public lands,” - Earthjustice President Abigail Dillen.

• “It was climate skeptic Doug Burgum who helped arrange the Mar-a-Lago meeting with wealthy oil and gas executives where Donald Trump offered to overturn dozens of environmental rules and regulations in exchange for $1 billion in campaign contributions. If that weren’t disqualifying enough, he’s long advocated for rolling back critical environmental safeguards in order to let polluters profit. Doug Burgum’s ties to the fossil fuel industry run deep and, if confirmed to this position, he will surely continue Donald Trump’s efforts to sell out our public lands to his polluter pals.” - Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous 

• “Doug Burgum comes from an oil state, but North Dakota is not a public lands state. His cozy relationship with oil billionaires may endear him to Donald Trump, but he has no experience that qualifies him to oversee the management of 20% of America’s lands.” - The Wilderness Society 

• “Governor Burgum’s cozy relationship with big oil spells danger for America’s taxpayers and the great outdoors. Americans deserve leaders who prioritize protecting public land for everyone, not for oil and gas profiteering.” - Government watchdog Accountable.US

• “Gargantuan, unreliable, intermittent energy projects hold America back from achieving U.S. Energy Dominance while weighing heavily on the American taxpayer and environment.” - Burgum on renewable energy, August 2025 

• “Based on common sense, arithmetic, and physics, wind and solar projects are highly inefficient uses of Federal lands.” -Burgum, July 2025.

• “This is not a national wildlife refuge, it’s the national strategic petroleum reserve,” - Burgum on the Willow Project, April 2025 

  
  

  “President Trump’s energy dominancecan be America’s ‘big stick’ that is leveraged to achieve historic prosperity and world peace.” -Burgum, January 16, 2025

• “What are we going to do? We're going to drill, baby drill. And when we do that, we're also going to mine baby, mine.” -Burgum, March 7 2025

• “The environmental restrictions are hurting this country, they're not helping it. People think that you're going to solve the environmental issues with regulations. The way we solve that is with innovation.” -Burgum, June 2, 2024

• “We're you know, we're the nation's number three oil producing state, we have a chance to get back up to number two if we keep going… The oil industry today is so efficient, so effective and so safe and so smart, and so environmentally friendly compared to any other nation.” -Burgum, 2023 North Dakota State of the State Address

• “We can't just talk about the Biden economy because the economy, energy and national security are all tied together. We're paying too much for energy right now. But part of the reason why is because of the Biden policies on energy. We've got a plan right now, the $1.2 trillion Green New Deal spending buried in the Inflation Creation Act [the Inflation Reduction Act -- ed.] is something that is just subsidizing China.” -Burgum, September 23, 2023

• “It’s not climate change that we need to be worried about, it’s the Biden climate policies that are the existential threat to America’s future,” -Burgum, September 23, 2023.  

• Alongside Howard Hamm, Burgum helped set up the now infamous April 2024 Mar-a-Lago dinner between Trump and oil executives. At this dinner, the president-elect asked for $1 billion in campaign donations from the oil industry, vowing in return to eviscerate environmental regulations. 

•  When he ran for North Dakota governor in 2016, Burgum disapproved of his rival for accepting donations from fossil fuel companies. However, after winning the Republican primary, Burgum accepted the financial and political support of oil and gas companies. As time has passed he has become increasingly reliant and supportive of the industry and made friends with major politicians and oil barons.  

• Gary Tharaldson gave the pro-Burgum super PAC $1 million last year. Tharaldson runs a major ethanol company and is North Dakota’s richest resident. 

• Continental Resources, the oil company owned by climate criminal Harold Hamm, gave $250,000 to a pro-Burgum super PAC last year; Hamm and Burgum are considered close friends and allies.

• Burgum’s family leases 200 acres of farmland to Continental Resources for the company to pump oil and gas, according to a federal financial disclosure report.

•  Burgum praised Hamm in his 2023 State of the State address last year, saying that Hamm’s “grit, resilience, hard work and determination has changed North Dakota and our nation.”

• In a July secretarial order, Burgum directed his department to eliminate policies that give “preferential treatment” to wind and solar, and ordered the agency to consider pulling “areas onshore with high potential for wind energy development” out of federal leasing. 

• Burgum’s Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) updated policy to expedite oil and gas leasing on public lands.

• Wright and Burgum co-lead the new National Energy Dominance Council established by President Trump, which prioritizes the expansion of fossil fuel energy at all costs. 

• The Interior Department, under Burgum's leadership, is working to expand offshore oil and gas drilling in the Arctic, reversing previous restrictions aimed at addressing climate change. 

• Ordered National Parks to stay open and operative, despite defending the National Park Service’s funding and staff cuts. 

• Proposed eliminating a Biden-era rule that barred oil and gas development across more than 13 million acres of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. 

• Taking steps to reignite the coal industry through ending a coal leasing moratorium, reopening federal lands for mining in some states, and  removing regulations of coal mines. The Department of the Interior commented that it is committed to "revitalizing the coal industry through the reduction of regulatory barriers and the promotion of energy independence."