As Joe Biden warns in his farewell address as president that “an oligarchy is taking shape in America”, a new report reveals that US fossil fuel billionaires’ wealth increased by 15% over the past nine months. Some of those wealthy figures will be at parties in DC celebrating Trump’s inauguration on Monday and expecting further rewards for his “drill, baby, drill” energy agenda.
The report from the research group Climate Accountability Research Project (Carp) comes just days ahead of climate denier Donald Trump’s second presidential inauguration, which oil and gas representatives and Trump donors plan to celebrate at a swanky industry party in Washington DC.
“The ‘oil-garchs’ are already reaping the rewards of their political donations and activities in support of Trump – and they know there is more to come,” said Chuck Collins, co-founder of Carp and one of the report’s authors.
The oil and gas industry has donated more than $75m to Trump’s campaign. The energy giant Chevron, as well as fossil fuel funders like Citibank, also donated to Trump’s inauguration fund.
The sector is expecting to benefit handsomely from Trump’s second term, during which he has promised to undo Biden’s climate policies, roll back decades-old environmental protections, exit the 2015 Paris climate accord, and scrap green funding programs.
The industry has also made specific asks of the incoming administration. On Tuesday, for instance, the top US oil lobby group the American Petroleum Institute launched an energy “road map” for Trump’s team and the Republican-controlled House and Senate.
On the wishlist are the expansion of oil and gas drilling areas and the undoing of Biden-era crackdowns on auto emissions and fossil fuel exports – moves Trump is expected to make early.
“There are many steps the Trump administration can begin to take on day one,” the lobby group’s CEO, Mike Sommers, said on a press call.
These expected policies will be a boon for fossil fuel profits. And they will follow recent gains in wealth for oil bosses, the new Carp report shows.
For their research, the authors analyzed numbers from from a Forbes database, which is updated every five minutes based on shifts in the stock market. The authors examined fluctuations in the top 15 US oil billionaires’ wealth – including the energy CEO Jeffery Hildebrand, oil and gas boss Timothy Dunn, pipeline company chairman Kelcy Warren, and fossil fuel CEO Charles Koch – since April 2024.
That month, Trump held a meeting with fossil fuel bosses where he reportedly asked them for $1bn in campaign donations, while vowing to roll back dozens of environmental regulations if elected. Since that infamous meeting, the combined wealth of these 15 fossil fuel billionaires shot up by $40.2bn, the report found, from $267.6bn to a stunning $307.8bn.
The two oil bosses who saw the largest gains were Richard Kinder, the CEO and chairman of the leading US gas pipeline operator Kinder Morgan, and Lyndal Stephens Greth, an owner of Texas oil and gas firm Diamondback Energy. Just behind them were Charles Koch, chairman of the fossil fuel conglomerate Koch Industries, and Julia Flesher-Koch, widow of the former Koch Industries executive David Koch.
Harold Hamm, the billionaire oil and gas executive who founded the Oklahoma-based petroleum company Continental Resources, was an anomaly in the report; his wealth remained consistent at $18.5bn.
But Hamm, who poured $4.3m into political action committees backing Trump while helping to raise money for his campaign from other executives – and even tried to help pay Trump’s bond – stands to profit significantly from Trump’s energy agenda in the coming months, the report notes.
On Monday, as Trump is inaugurated, Hamm will host an exclusive daytime party on the roof of the Hay-Adams hotel, which sits a block from the White House. Liberty Energy, the fossil fuel services company founded by Chris Wright, who Trump has tapped to lead the Department of Energy, will also help foot the bill for the party, the New York Times reported.
News of the party outraged climate advocates. “Oil billionaires spent tens of millions of dollars to put Donald Trump in the White House, handpicked his cabinet nominees and now they’re celebrating the tax breaks he’s promised to give them as president,” said Pete Jones, a director at activist and research group non-profit Climate Power.
Each of the 15 billionaires Carp examined has used their wealth and power “to deny climate change, fund climate disinformation and sham science, and block clean energy alternatives”, the report says. Dunn, for instance, was a contributor to the anti-climate and anti-regulatory policy blueprint Project 2025, while the Kochs have long been criticized for promoting climate doubt.
This week, senators also confirmed appointees to Trump’s cabinet who are expected to oversee the expansion of planet-heating oil and gas. That includes not only fracking executive Wright, but also Lee Zeldin, a former New York congressman who has railed against Democrats’ “far-left climate agenda” and who will lead the Environmental Protection Agency.
Trump’s pick for secretary of the interior, the former North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, also helped arrange Trump’s April meeting with oil executives. He was invited to the Monday fossil fuel industry inauguration soiree, though he reportedly will not attend.
Trump’s incoming administration will be the wealthiest in US history, the Carp report found, with a combined net worth upwards of $300bn.
