American shale billionaire from Oklahoma. A backer of Donald Trump's presidential campaign, Mr Hamm persuaded Mr Trump to name Christopher Wright, a fellow shale driller, as America's secretary of energy. In 2025 Mr Hamm convened a secret meeting of oilmen in Tulsa, ostensibly to promote the use of natural gas to power data centres for artificial intelligence; insiders say plans were hatched to tilt federal regulation to favour fossil fuels over renewables. Four members of the cabinet were reportedly present.
I attribute my success to intelligence, guts, determination, honesty, ambition, and having enough money to buy people with those qualities.