Bill Haslam

William Edward Haslam (; born August 23, 1958) is an American billionaire businessman and politician who served as the 49th governor of Tennessee from 2011 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, Haslam previously served as the 67th mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee. He is also the majority owner of the Nashville Predators, having bought the team from Herb Fritch in July 2025, and co-owner of a minor league baseball team, the Knoxville Smokies.

Haslam was born in Knoxville and attended Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. After graduating, he joined Pilot Corporation, founded by his father Jim. In the 1990s, he served as its president, with Jim being the chairman and his brother Jimmy being the CEO. From 1999 to 2001, he was CEO of the e-commerce and cataloging division at the department store chain Saks Fifth Avenue. He then became a consultant at Saks and later served on the board of directors at Harold's Stores, Inc.

In 2003, Haslam was elected mayor of Knoxville, earning 52% of the vote. A total vote of 87% afforded him re-election in 2007. In 2009, he announced that he would be running to succeed Phil Bredesen as Governor of Tennessee; winning the Republican primary with 47% of the vote, he went on to handily defeat businessman Mike McWherter, the Democratic candidate, in the general election. His margin of victory increased in 2014.

A 2015 Forbes article estimated Haslam's net worth at $2 billion, making him the nation's wealthiest elected official at that time. He was the wealthiest state governor in the United States until January 2019, when JB Pritzker, a member of the Pritzker family, became Governor of Illinois.

Haslam was born in 1958 in Knoxville, Tennessee, the third child of Jim Haslam, the founder of Pilot Corporation, the parent company of the convenience store and travel center chain, Pilot Flying J, and his wife, Cynthia (Allen). Jim Haslam has been a Republican Party fundraiser and University of Tennessee donor and trustee for several decades.

Haslam was educated at the Webb School of Knoxville, where he became active in the Christian group Young Life. He later attended Emory University, graduating with a bachelor's degree in history in 1980. He is a member of the Beta Chi chapter of the Sigma Chi International Fraternity.

As a teenager, Haslam began working part-time in his father's corporation. He had made plans to teach history and eventually become a minister. Following his university graduation, he returned to Knoxville to work for Pilot in hopes of learning more about the business world before entering the seminary, and eventually decided to stay with the company. He was elevated to president of the company (with his brother, Jimmy, as CEO, and father as chairman) in 1995.

In 1999, Haslam joined Saks Fifth Avenue as the chief executive officer of the e-commerce and catalog division. He left Saks in 2001, and joined the board of the Dallas-based clothing chain, Harold's Stores Inc., later that year.

Haslam is one of the owners of the Tennessee Smokies, a minor league baseball team in East Tennessee. His brother, current Pilot Flying J CEO Jimmy Haslam, became majority owner of the Cleveland Browns in 2012.

In 2002, Haslam announced he was running for Mayor of Knoxville, inspired in part by a conversation he had had with then-Chattanooga mayor (and later United States Senator) Bob Corker. Knoxville's mayoral elections are nominally non-partisan, but Haslam was known to be a member of the Republican Party when he ran for the office. His opponent in the race, Knox County commissioner Madeline Rogero, criticized Haslam as an oil company puppet, and blamed his father for the appointment of controversial University of Tennessee president John Shumaker, an attack Haslam dismissed as "petty, personal politics". On September 30, 2003, he defeated Rogero by a 52% to 46% margin. He was sworn in in December 2003.

In 2006, Haslam appointed Rogero director of community development, later stating he had read Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals, and was inspired by President Abraham Lincoln's decision to appoint former campaign rivals to his cabinet. He was reelected in 2007, winning 87% of the vote against challengers Isa Infante and Mark Saroff.

Haslam identifies several successful historic preservation initiatives among his accomplishments as mayor, including saving the historic S&W Cafeteria in downtown Knoxville, building a new cinema (the Regal Riviera) in the city's downtown, and revitalizing the historic Bijou Theatre. In 2008, he was appointed to a four-year term on the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation by U.S. President George W. Bush.

Along with historical preservation efforts, Haslam helped spur residential and retail growth in the downtown area, mainly by offering developers tax subsidies. He helped implement a master plan for the development of the South Knoxville riverfront, which was given an Outstanding Planning Award by the Tennessee Chapter of the American Planning Association. The Haslam administration operated under a balanced budget policy, which helped to double the city's savings during his first term.

On January 6, 2009, Haslam declared his intention to run for Tennessee governor in 2010.

His campaign received contributions of $3.9 million between January and July 1, 2009, substantially more than his Republican primary rivals. Lieutenant Governor Ron Ramsey received $1.3 million and U.S. Congressman Zach Wamp received $1.2 million, while Shelby County District Attorney General Bill Gibbons reported $416,000 at that time. Among Democratic candidates, businessman Mike McWherter raised $650,000 at the mid-year, followed by former State House Majority Leader Kim McMillan's $180,000.

Haslam received endorsements from former U.S. Senator Howard Baker and Congressman Jimmy Duncan. The Tennessean wrote, "Haslam appears most likely to be able to ride Gov. Phil Bredesen's pro-business coattails, despite the different party affiliation."

On the Republican side from July 1, 2009, until January 15, 2010, Haslam collected $1.8 million, Ramsey raised $1,412,593 including a $200,000 loan, Wamp raised $1,373,078 including a $61,000 loan, and Gibbons raised $225,218. Among Democrats during the six months, State Senate Minority Leader Jim Kyle collected $741,485 including a $300,000 personal loan, McWherter raised $402,868, and McMillan raised $159,981.

Haslam campaigned on his executive experience as both Knoxville's mayor and the president of a major company. His opponents attacked him as an oil executive, especially in the wake of price-gouging allegations levied against Pilot in the wake of the post-Hurricane Katrina fuel shortages, and criticized his refusal to release information related to his income while at Pilot.

Haslam stated that job creation and long-term economic growth were his top priority as governor, followed by education reform and workforce development. On June 16, 2011, Haslam signed a $30.8 billion state budget, a 3.9% decrease from the previous year's budget.

The budget included 1.6% pay raise for state employees (though it also called for over 1,300 positions to be cut), grants to facilitate construction of an Electrolux plant near Memphis and a Wacker Chemie plant near Cleveland, and $10 million for the Memphis Research Consortium. The budget bill also contained an amendment cutting off all state funding to Planned Parenthood, but the measure was negated by an amendment inserted into the same bill by an unknown legislator, something Haslam vowed to correct in 2012.

On May 23, 2011, Haslam signed a bill overturning a Nashville ordinance that barred discrimination against queer employees for any companies awarded city contracts. On June 1, Haslam signed a bill requiring voters to present photo identification at polling places, a measure supporters argue prevents voter fraud, but detractors have derided as an attempt to disenfranchise traditionally-Democratic voting blocs. On June 2, Haslam signed a bill replacing public school teachers' collective bargaining rights with a process called "collaborative conferencing", effectively bypassing the teachers' union, the Tennessee Education Association.

Other legislation signed by Haslam included a tort reform measure that limits non-economic damages in civil suits, a bill that lifted the cap on the number charter schools in the state and opened enrollment in charter schools to more students, and a bill that allows college students to use Hope Scholarship funds during summer semesters.

In October 2011, Haslam approved an order to implement a curfew on Legislative Plaza in downtown Nashville next to the capitol, where several hundred protesters with the Occupy Nashville movement (part of the greater Occupy Wall Street movement) were camping out. In the early morning hours of October 28, 29 protesters were arrested when they refused to comply with the order, and on the following day, 26 were arrested. In both cases, the arrests were thrown out by General Sessions Night Court Commissioner Tom Nelson, who ruled that the state had no authority to set a curfew for Legislative Plaza. Haslam stated the curfew was necessary due to deteriorating sanitary conditions and safety issues on the Plaza, though critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a lawsuit in federal court on October 31 to halt the arrests, have stated that the curfew is a violation of the protesters' civil rights.

Haslam favors a conservative state budget that keeps taxes low in order to create and maintain a business-friendly environment. While he largely supports budget cuts, Haslam has suggested that the Republican Party is too often focused on scaling back government rather than making it work. "At the end of the day," he said, "I think the most conservative principle there is, is giving people a dollar worth of value for a dollar worth of tax paid."

Haslam was formerly a member of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition, but he resigned early in 2009 and became a member of the National Rifle Association of America. When a candidate for governor, Haslam said he would sign a constitutional carry bill, but as governor, he opposed constitutional carry.

As Governor, Haslam implemented education reform programs that offered tuition-free access to higher education. The Tennessee Promise program, launched in 2014, provides two years of tuition-free access for high school graduates to attend community or technical college. The Tennessee Reconnect program provides tuition-free access for most of the state's adults to earn an associate degree or technical certificate. Haslam framed the education reforms as part of economic development, as the state sought to provide its workforce with more skills and thus attract businesses to the state.

Haslam opposes same-sex marriage, though he has stated that he wouldn't discriminate against gay employees. In May 2017, he signed a bill requiring the so-called "natural and ordinary meaning" of words in state law and government forms be used unless those words are specifically defined. This law will make it more difficult for same-sex couples to adopt children, pleasing socially conservative groups like the Family Action Council of Tennessee. The latter lobbied heavily for this bill to be passed, in order to ensure Tennessee courts only accept a 'traditional' definition of family. LGBT organization GLAAD issued a statement that Governor Haslam "has now placed the future of the state’s economy and the well-being of the LGBTQ community in jeopardy.”

Haslam has said he favors cracking down on businesses that employ illegal immigrants, and suggested he would sign a law requiring law enforcement officers to check the citizenship status of arrested individuals they suspect might be in the country illegally, if passed by the state legislature.

After US Senator Lamar Alexander announced that he would not seek re-election in 2020, speculation began to arise that Haslam would run for the seat. Haslam announced in July 2019 that he would not do so.

In June 2022, Bill Haslam agreed to become the new owner of the NHL's Nashville Predators "through a multi-phased acquisition transaction". Haslam, whose brother, Jimmy, co-owns the NFL's Cleveland Browns with his wife, Dee, reached an agreement with the franchise's present ownership group, which is chaired by Herbert Fritch and includes at least 17 others. He became the majority owner of the Predators on July 1, 2025.

In May 2023, U.S. Senator and 2024 presidential candidate Tim Scott appointed Haslam as national co-chair of his 2024 campaign.

Haslam met his wife, Crissy Garrett, at Emory University and they have been married since 1981; with one son and two daughters and eight grandchildren. Haslam is a Presbyterian, and is a longtime member of Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church, an Evangelical Presbyterian Church congregation in Knoxville. He attends Christ Presbyterian Church when in Nashville. Haslam has been a member of the Young Life Board of Trustees since 2011.