Douglas Burgum is an American businessman and politician who currently serves as the 55th U.S. Secretary of the Interior under President Donald Trump, a role he assumed in February 2025 after being confirmed by the Senate in a 79–18 vote. Before his federal career, he made his fortune by investing in the software company Great Plains Software, which he sold to Microsoft for $1.1 billion in 2001, and later co-founded the real estate firm Kilbourne Group and venture capital group Arthur Ventures. A Republican, he served as Governor of North Dakota from 2016 to 2024, winning both elections by wide margins, and briefly ran for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination before dropping out to become a Trump energy advisor. As Interior Secretary, he has sparked controversy by cracking down on wind power while aggressively promoting coal, expanded drilling, and metals extraction on federal lands—even announcing a plan to pay energy companies nearly $2.6 billion to abandon wind farm projects. Born in Arthur, North Dakota, in 1956, he earned an MBA from Stanford, where he befriended future Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, and his early life was shaped by his father's death during his freshman year of high school.