Harold Hamm, founder of Continental Resources, delivers a speech during the Republican National Convention on July 20, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio.
Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images
Who is in power doesn’t always determine who is making money. Just look at how the fortunes of U.S. billionaires have performed in the year since Joe Biden took office. Those who donated to Donald Trump’s campaign are up about 19%, according to Forbes’ estimates. Those who gave to Biden’s campaign, by contrast, are up 14%. The S&P 500, meanwhile, rose 19%.
In part, that’s because oil barons, who largely supported Trump, are doing exceptionally well under Biden, whose campaign sent back donations made by at least two billionaires whose fortunes came from oil and gas. Oil prices are surging thanks to an increase in geopolitical tensions and a decrease in Covid shutdowns.
The beneficiaries are people like fracking tycoon Harold Hamm, whose Continental Resources controls huge reserves of oil on U.S. soil. Hamm donated $320,000 to Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, but he actually lost $9 billion during Trump’s presidency, more than any other billionaire in the country. Under Biden, he’s flying high again, having gained it all back in the last year.
It’s a similar story for Kelcy Warren, an oil baron whose Dakota Access pipeline got a boost from Trump. That wasn’t enough to save Warren, though. He ultimately lost more than $1 billion from 2017 to 2021. Still, he was all-in for Trump in 2020, declaring, “The upcoming election is the most important in a generation.” Nonetheless, he’s up about $1 billion in the Biden era.
Billionaires in sectors that tend to lean left, like technology, haven’t performed quite as well, and Biden had more billionaire donors from the tech sector than Trump. DoorDash cofounders Tony Xu, Stanley Tang and Andy Fang, who all donated to Biden, have seen their fortunes decline by at least 30% since last year. Meg Whitman, who Biden recently appointed to become ambassador to Kenya, has lost more than one billion dollars of her fortune since last year thanks to a drop in the PayPal stock she owns.
