Doug Burgum

Douglas James Burgum ( BURG-əm; born August 1, 1956) is an American businessman and politician who has served as the 55th United States secretary of the interior since 2025 under President Donald Trump. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 33rd governor of North Dakota from 2016 to 2024.

Burgum was born and raised in Arthur, North Dakota. After graduating from North Dakota State University in 1978 with a bachelor's degree in university studies and earning an MBA from Stanford University two years later, he mortgaged inherited farmland in 1983 to invest in Great Plains Software in Fargo. Becoming its president in 1984, he took the company public in 1997. Burgum sold the company to Microsoft for $1.1 billion in 2001. While working at Microsoft, he managed Microsoft Business Solutions. He has served as board chairman for Australian software company Atlassian and SuccessFactors. Burgum is the founder of Kilbourne Group, a Fargo-based real-estate development firm, and also is the co-founder of Arthur Ventures, a software venture capital group.

Burgum won the 2016 North Dakota gubernatorial election in a landslide. He was reelected by a wide margin in 2020. In June 2023, Burgum launched a campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. He ended his candidacy in early December 2023, and became an advisor on the Trump campaign's energy policy. On November 14, 2024, President-elect Trump announced his intention to nominate Burgum as the United States secretary of the interior. On January 30, 2025, Burgum was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in a 79–18 vote. On February 1, 2025, Burgum was sworn in as the fifty-fifth U.S. secretary of the interior.

As Secretary of the Interior, he oversaw the Trump administration's crackdown on wind power, while promoting coal-fired power, expanded drilling on federal lands, and expanded metals extraction from federal lands and wildlife refuges. In 2026, Burgum announced that U.S. taxpayers would pay multiple energy companies, including a French company, nearly $2.6 billion to stop plans to build wind farms in the United States.

Burgum was born on August 1, 1956, in Arthur, North Dakota, the son of Katherine (née Kilbourne) and Joseph Boyd Burgum, who were both of English descent. He has a brother, Bradley, and a sister, Barbara. His grandfather J. A. Burgum established a grain elevator in Arthur in 1906. The company evolved into an agribusiness still owned by the family.

During his freshman year in high school, Burgum's father died. He later said that the experience shaped him as a person. He graduated from North Dakota State University (NDSU) in 1978. He was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon and served as student body president. As a college student, he started a chimney-sweeping business.

Burgum later studied at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he befriended Steve Ballmer, who became CEO of Microsoft. He completed his MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business in 1980.

After earning his MBA, Burgum moved to Chicago to become a management consultant at McKinsey & Company.

In March 1983, Burgum mortgaged $250,000 of farmland to provide the seed capital for accounting software company Great Plains Software in Fargo. He acquired a 2.5% stake in the company, and became its vice president of marketing. In 1984, Burgum led a group of investors, including relatives, who purchased a controlling interest in Great Plains Software from Joseph C. Larson, the company's founder, who retained a minority interest.

During the 1980s, Fortune magazine often ranked Great Plains Software among the nation's top 100 companies to work for. Burgum grew the company to about 250 employees by 1989 and led it to about $300 million in annual sales, after using the internet to help it expand beyond North Dakota. He said he built the company in Fargo because North Dakota State University was there; NDSU acted as a feeder school to supply engineering students to GPS. The company went public in 1997. In 1999 the company acquired Match Data Systems, a development team in the Philippines. In 2001, Burgum sold Great Plains Software to Microsoft for $1.1 billion in stock. Announced in December 2000, the acquisition was completed in 2001. According to Burgum, he held a 10% stake in Great Plains at the time.

After the sale, Burgum was named senior vice president of Microsoft Business Solutions Group, the unit created from GPS. At Microsoft, he was responsible for making enterprise apps a priority. In 2005, he expressed interest in stepping down as senior vice president to become chairman of Microsoft Business Solutions. In September 2006, he announced that he planned to leave Microsoft entirely by 2007.

In 2008 Burgum co-founded Arthur Ventures, a venture capital company that invests in businesses involved in technology, life sciences, and clean technologies. The group began operation with a $20 million fund and primarily invested in companies in North Dakota and Minnesota. By 2013 it had expanded operations into Nebraska, Missouri, Arizona, and Iowa.

Prior to running for office, Burgum endorsed Republican Steve Sydness for one of North Dakota's U.S. Senate seats in 1988. He supported the gubernatorial campaigns of Republicans John Hoeven and Jack Dalrymple in 2008 and 2012.

In 2016, Burgum announced his candidacy for governor of North Dakota as a Republican. With no formal political experience, he lost the state Republican party's endorsement to longtime attorney general Wayne Stenehjem, but defeated Stenehjem handily in the primary election two months later. Burgum faced Democrat Marvin Nelson and Libertarian Marty Riske in the November general election and won with over 75% of the vote. He was sworn in on December 15, 2016, alongside running mate Brent Sanford.

Burgum was reelected in 2020 with over 65% of the vote.

During both terms, North Dakota maintained a robust fossil fuel industry. Burgum set a goal for North Dakota to become carbon-neutral by 2030, which he planned to accomplish through carbon capture and storage technology to capture and sequester carbon dioxide in the state's geological formations and by using carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery and via agricultural practices that sequester carbon in soil. At the annual meeting of the North Dakota petroleum council in 2021, Burgum claimed that announcement of the goal sparked $25 billion in private sector investment.

On December 20, 2022, Sanford resigned, citing a desire to return to the private sector. Burgum appointed businesswoman Tammy Miller as lieutenant governor. She took office on January 2, 2023.

On November 15, 2024, President-elect Donald Trump announced his nomination of Burgum for Secretary of the Interior in the second Trump administration. The Department of the Interior oversees public lands, natural resources, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, among other things.

Trump also named Burgum as his new "energy czar" to handle deregulation and private investments. This position also gives Burgum a seat on the National Security Council.

Burgum's selection was highly praised by numerous Republican senators, including John Barrasso, Dan Sullivan, and Tim Sheehy. Many tribal leaders also expressed support for his nomination. It received backlash from environmental groups over Burgum's ties to and plans for the fossil fuel industry, such as his support for the pro-coal Lignite Energy Council.

Before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Burgum stated that he viewed America's public lands and waters as part of the country's financial "balance sheet", and advocated for extracting potentially trillions of dollars' worth of oil, gas and minerals via mining and drilling. He also stated that he intended to realize Trump's plan for energy independence via "energy dominance" and an expansion of America's fossil fuel production. He also argued that curbs on energy production posed a national security threat as it means the United States has to import fuel from other countries, such as Russia and Iran. He also said "I believe that climate change is a global phenomenon, for sure."

On January 23, 2025, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved Burgum's nomination in a 18–2 vote. On January 30, 2025, Burgum was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in a 79–18 vote, receiving the second most bipartisan support of any cabinet member after Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

During his 2016 campaign he described himself as a moderate on social issues and a fiscal conservative. Burgum was a critic of the Joe Biden administration.

Burgum supports the fossil fuel industry, especially in the Bakken region of western North Dakota. He supports the Dakota Access Pipeline. He has said that American energy independence is an issue of national security. He derided what he called a "full-on assault of liquid fuels in this country" and has regularly criticized policies to subsidize electric vehicles. He called for opening Bureau of Land Management land for energy-related activities such as rare earth metal mining and oil and natural gas drilling. He promised to make North Dakota carbon neutral by 2030; he said he would loosen regulations for the gas industry, but also said he is committed to clean energy projects.

Burgum criticized the Biden administration for policies phasing out gas stoves in some forms of new housing.

Burgum has been a vocal supporter of carbon capture pipelines while governor, going so far as to allow three natural gas companies, Summit Carbon Solutions, Navigator CO2 Ventures, and Wolf Carbon Solutions, to use eminent domain to seize land to install pipelines. These pipelines would transport excess carbon dioxide captured from ethanol production plants in Iowa to facilities in North Dakota to store them deep underground. Many rural residents oppose the pipelines due to the fear of leaks as well as the seizure of private land to create them. When confronted about the issue at an Iowa rally, Burgum changed his position, saying he fervently opposed eminent domain, but insisted that carbon capture was good for the economy and the environment and that it would allow the use of traditional internal combustion automobiles indefinitely.

During his 2016 gubernatorial campaign, Burgum was noted for saying women were "unsafe" before Roe v. Wade. In 2024, he said his position on abortion had evolved in that he believes abortion laws should be left to the individual states.

Burgum married his first wife, Karen Stoker, in 1991. They had three children before divorcing in 2003. In 2016, Burgum married Kathryn Helgaas. As first lady of North Dakota, Kathryn Burgum led the Recovery Reinvented program on addiction and recovery. Burgum's daughter, Jesse, owns a film production company which put her on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list.

While campaigning for president in 2024, Burgum said in an interview that he likes the music of Keith Urban and enjoys watching the television shows Yellowstone and Ted Lasso.

Burgum received honorary doctorates from North Dakota State University in 2000 and the University of Mary in 2006.

In 2009, Burgum received the Theodore Roosevelt Roughrider Award from Governor John Hoeven.