This oil tycoon brings in millions for Trump, and may set his agenda
After Donald Trump asked the oil industry to contribute $1 billion to his presidential campaign in April, oil baron Harold Hamm immediately started working the phones.
Hamm, the billionaire founder of Continental Resources, called other oil executives and encouraged them to attend fundraisers and open their wallets, according to people with knowledge of the outreach who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private discussions.
“We’ve got to do this because it’s the most important election in our lifetime,” Hamm said as he made calls after the April dinner at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club, where the former president made the audacious fundraising ask, according to an associate.
Another person familiar with the matter said Hamm railed against President Joe Biden’s energy policies and argued that even if donors didn’t love Trump, it made sense to support the former president. In recent months, Hamm has also orchestrated some introductions between oil executives and Trump, and Trump has now “called almost everyone in the sector,” said a person involved in the industry.
Hamm, a sharecropper’s son who rose to become one of the world’s richest men, would seem to be an unlikely power broker. He doesn’t travel with an entourage and doesn’t keep a high profile. Yet he has emerged as a central figure in cajoling the oil industry to finance Trump’s reelection bid, and in communicating to the ex-president what the oil industry wants to improve its fortunes in a second Trump term.
His message appears to be resonating with some of the country’s wealthiest oil magnates, who are banking on Trump’s promises to reverse dozens of Biden’s environmental rules and policies.
The money has been flowing in. The oil and gas industry has contributed more than $20.3 million to the Trump campaign, pro-Trump super PACs and the Republican National Committee in the 2024 cycle, according to data from OpenSecrets. Trump is expected to do more oil and gas events later this year, aides say. [Continue reading…]