Trump Asked Oil Magnates for $1 Billion. Now They're Racing to Deliver It.
Campaign filings and donor invitations reveal that Big Oil is sprinting to raise cash for Trump after he promised to roll back regulations.
By Donald Shaw and David Moore, Sludge
During a private dinner at Mar-a-Lago in April, former President Donald Trump asked a group of about 20 oil executives to raise $1 billion for his campaign and promised that if he is elected he’ll reverse dozens of President Biden’s regulations on the oil industry. Some of the oil magnates in attendance have already begun carrying out their part of the deal.
On April 29, about two weeks after Trump pressed the executives for donations, oil company Continental Resources donated $1 million to the pro-Trump super PAC Make America Great Again Inc. (MAGA Inc.), the group’s May monthly Federal Election Commission filing indicates. The company’s executive chairman Harold Hamm organized the April meeting where Trump asked for the $1 billion, according to the Washington Post.
Besides Hamm, other executives at the April dinner included those from ExxonMobil, Chevron, Chesapeake Energy, Occidental Petroleum, Venture Global LNG, EQT Corporation, and Cheniere Energy, along with Trump’s energy adviser Doug Burgum.
Hamm is already helping to raise more money for Trump’s re-election. He’ll be hosting a fundraiser luncheon tomorrow in Houston for MAGA Inc. along with Energy Transfer Executive Chairman Kelcy Warren and Occidental Petroleum President and CEO Vicki Hollub, according to an invite. Hollub also appears to have been in attendance at the April Mar-a-Lago meeting, according to a letter sent to her by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD). Trump will be in attendance at the Houston luncheon, and “contributions are appreciated.”
Another invitation posted online says that there will be a Houston luncheon on May 22 for the Trump 47 joint fundraising committee that will be hosted by, among others, Jeff Hildebrand, the CEO of oil and gas exploration and production company Hilcorp Energy, and George Bishop, the CEO of oil and gas company GeoSouthern Energy. The invite says a “photo opportunity” with Trump will cost couples $50,000, while “Chairs” are asked to donate $844,600 per couple or raise more than $1.6 million per couple.
Warren will be co-hosting another fundraiser for Trump in Dallas on Wednesday, according to The Dallas Morning News. Among the other co-hosts is Dallas businessman Ray Washburne, who is currently the chairman of the board of Sunoco LP.
A Manhattan fundraiser for Trump on May 14, which similarly asked chairs to give or raise $844,600, was co-hosted by New York City billionaire John Catsimatidis, whose energy holdings include the United Refining Company. Between 2017 and 2023, the Pennsylvania oil refinery owned by Trump megadonor Catsimatidis was the most dangerous such facility in the country, racking up 10 times the average number of injuries for a refinery, according to federal OSHA data.
Congressional Democrats launched an investigation of Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago dinner with oil executives soon after reports emerged of the former president’s ask for a billion dollars in campaign support. On May 14, Raskin sent letters to nine Big Oil CEOs requesting information about any “quid pro quo financial agreements related to U.S. energy policy” that may be found to violate campaign finance laws. The communications director of one government ethics watchdog, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), said Trump’s comments as reported by the Washington Post “certainly looks a lot like quid pro quo.”
Continental Resources, one of the largest leaseholders in the Bakken oil field, has pushed back against several of the Biden administration’s environmental protection initiatives. In September 2021, the company wrote to the EPA in defense of the Trump administration’s 2020 Navigable Water Protections as the Biden administration was preparing to override it with its own Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rulemaking, which would expand the federal government’s jurisdiction over the country’s waterways. In February 2022, the company sent the EPA a letter saying that it sided with dozens of oil industry trade associations that opposed the administration’s proposal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions of the crude oil and natural gas industries.
Even prior to Trump’s $1 billion request, Hamm, Warren and other oil industry executives had donated to support his re-election. Hamm and Warren gave nearly $1.5 million combined in March to Trump 47 Committee, a joint fundraising committee, and Hamm gave MAGA Inc. $200,000 in November of last year. Hamm and Warren had both been heavyweight Trump backers during his prior campaigns, before the two donated last year to rivals in the GOP presidential primary. Hamm was dubbed “Trump’s energy whisperer” by Politico in 2016, and Warren gave $10 million to a pro-Trump super PAC in the 2020 contest.
In June 2018, at a fundraiser for the America First Action super PAC, Trump praised “the legendary Harold Hamm,” who he said is “doing good stuff” and “is so rich he doesn’t know what the hell is happening.” Hamm had donated $500,000 to the super PAC in January 2018, and Continental Resources had chipped in another $500,000 to it that April.
Hamm was reportedly one of the billionaires who was organizing donors in March to fund a bond to help cover the $454 million civil fraud judgment against Trump for fraudulently inflating his net worth to help him secure loans. The bond was settled for $175 million.
More Texas oil and gas billionaires have opened their wallets to back Trump’s 2024 bid. Tim Dunn, CEO of fracking company CrownQuest Operating, donated $5 million to MAGA Inc. last December. Bishop gave the super PAC MAGA Inc. $1 million last October.
In recent election cycles, Occidental Petroleum’s PAC and employees have showered millions of dollars in campaign contributions on Republicans and given millions more to GOP super PACs like the Senate Leadership Fund aligned with Mitch McConnell. The company belongs to the top fossil fuel trade association, the American Petroleum Institute (API), among a roster of others.
Lobbyists for the fossil fuel industry are steering donations to Trump’s re-election as well. Prominent Trump-era lobbyist Brian Ballard, who has several oil and gas industry clients, has donated $250,000 to a Trump committee, $250,000 to the Republican National Committee, and has bundled more than $50,000 for another Trump fundraising body. Lobbyist Jeff Miller, who was a top fundraiser for former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), has bundled over $852,000 for Trump. His lobbying clients include two of the companies of the Houston fundraiser hosts—Energy Transfer and Occidental—among others like Valero Energy.
Related: Big Oil has known for more than 50 years that fossil fuels pose a huge danger to the climate. They covered it up to keep raking in profits. It's one of the biggest corporate crimes in history. Now a landmark lawsuit is advancing to make oil companies pay.
They've known since 1912. They are fascists. They're working hand in glove with the OPEC cartel. Who's going to stop them?
Unbelievable levels of quid pro quo. Openly selling off regulatory action, with a price tag and everything.
Trump has an incredible ability to recognize where the rules holding American democracy together are weakest and hit them.
Our democracy has been held together with proprietary and gentlemen’s agreements for a long time. As odious as he is, Trump isn’t responsible for that. If he doesn’t crack our democracy, and we don’t fix those holes quickly, somebody will smash it like an egg.