Harold Hamm

POLITICAL IDEOLOGY

OILOCRAT

• In a 2022 interview with the Financial Times, Hamm described his ideology succinctly: “Republican, Democrat… I’m an oilocrat and I’m also a patriot.”
• In a 2013 interview with NBC News, Hamm referred to “environmentalism” as a “religion” and disputed the idea that people should use the term “carbon pollution,” saying, “I mean, all of us breathe out carbon dioxide. Are we going to quit breathing?”
• At the 2016 Republican National Convention, Hamm said that “Climate change isn’t our biggest problem. It’s Islamic terrorism.”

CONTROVERSIES

• Urged a dean at the University of Oklahoma—to which he was and continued to be a large donor—to fire seismologists who were studying the link between oil and gas extraction and earthquake activity in Oklahoma.
  • The state went from experiencing two earthquakes of a magnitude greater than 3.0 in 2008, to experiencing 585 in 2014. Scientists overwhelmingly attribute the dramatic rise to the oil and gas industry’s wastewater disposal practices.
• Organized Trump’s infamous April 2024 meeting with oil executives, at which, the Washington Post reported that “Trump told oil executives that raising $1 billion for his reelection bid would be a ‘deal’ because of the taxation and regulation they could avoid.”
  • The Senate Budget Committee and Senate Finance Committee subsequently launched a joint investigation into the dinner, accusing Trump of making “quid pro quo propositions to Big Oil executives.”
• In 2025, Hamm’s Continental Resources had a pipeline failure that caused 3.1 million gallons of brine—a form of wastewater—to spill in Williams County, North Dakota.
  • According to researchers at North Dakota State University, brine spills can have devastating ecological impacts, and they “can often be worse than oil spills because oil will naturally degrade over time, whereas brine is inorganic and does not degrade.”
• Donated nearly $1 million to a pro-Mitt Romney super PAC barely a month after presidential candidate Romney named him as his top energy advisor in 2012.

OBSCENE SPENDING

• Hamm’s 2014 divorce—which ended with Hamm writing his ex-wife, Sue Ann Arnall, a personal check for $975 million—revealed much of Hamm’s personal holdings at the time, including:
  • At least five properties valued at more than $23.5 million (in 2014 dollars), including a $17.5 million ranch in Carmel Valley, California, which went to Arnall in the settlement
  • Two horses valued at $400,000
  • An airplane hangar at Oklahoma’s Enid Airport valued at $310,000, as well as a holding company for Hamm’s private jet valued at $10 million, both of which went to Hamm.
    • Hamm, a pilot himself, also retains use of Continental’s corporate jet
• In 2022, Hamm distributed stakes of Continental Resources worth $2.3 billion to each of his five children and subsequently spent $4.3 billion in cash to take the company private—keeping his extracted wealth in the family.

ENABLING

The Climate Crisis

Hamm’s company’s contributions to the climate crisis are immense. Continental Resources is a top producer of oil and gas, with operations concentrated in Oklahoma, Texas, Wyoming, Montana, and North Dakota’s Bakken Formation. According to Carbon Majors, as of 2024, Continental’s lifetime emissions make it the 153rd largest producer of emissions ever—just below Russian Coal. In 2024 alone, it produced 65 million metric tons of carbon dioxide—more than the entire nation of Bolivia emitted in the same year.

Apparently, that’s not enough for Hamm. In a recent meeting with Trump focused on Venezuela’s oil reserves following the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro, Without making any commitments, Hamm expressed more openness than other executives to drilling in the country, saying, “It excites me as an explorationist… It is a very exciting country and a lot of reserves.” He is also poised to expand Continental’s operations to Argentina, a move he has attributed largely to the regulatory environment of President Javier Milei, a self-proclaimed “anarcho-capitalist.” In January, after revealing plans to invest as much as $200 million per year in Argentinian drilling operations, Hamm told the Financial Times, “There’s a lot that we like about this new administration. President Milei is trying to do the right thing.”

The Trump Administration

Despite initially backing Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis in the 2024 Republican primaries and pleading with Trump to stay out of the race (reportedly Hamm complained that Trump failed to pardon an associate of his), Hamm became one of Trump’s largest backers in the general election. Hamm also helped persuade other oil executives to contribute to Trump’s campaign. In addition to organizing the controversial April 2024 dinner between Trump and oil executives, Hamm co-hosted a different fundraiser at fellow billionaire John Paulson’s house and a 2024 invitation-only luncheon in Houston—together raising millions of dollars for Trump’s super PAC.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright, whose appointment Hamm lobbied for, used to be a director of the Domestic Energy Producers Alliance, a lobbying group created by Hamm. During the 2024 campaign, Hamm advocated for then-North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum to be Trump’s vice president (Burgum was instead chosen to be Secretary of the Interior). Burgum was personally leasing land to Continental Resources as of early 2025, and was a close ally and personal friend of Hamm’s while serving as governor of North Dakota. Hamm was a “VIP” at a May 2024 dinner hosted by Burgum, and Burgum was personally invited to Hamm’s January 2025 inauguration “watch party” on the rooftop of the luxurious Hay-Adams hotel. With his allies in key positions, Hamm has tripled down on his support for the Trump Administration, recently donating to help fund the construction of Trump’s $300 million ballroom. Still, apparently unsatisfied with this level of influence, Hamm asked the Governor of Oklahoma to appoint him to Oklahoma’s open Senate seat.