President-elect Donald Trump's energy secretary nominee Chris Wright will resign from Oklo, a nuclear energy company in California backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman that has received $2.7 million in federal grants since 2023, the Trump-Vance team said.
It is considered a conflict of interest for any government official to sit on the board of a company that gets federal funding.
A Trump-Vance transition official told the Washington Examiner that Wright would be resigning from all corporate boards he sits on upon his confirmation to the position.
That includes Liberty Energy, where he is chairman of the board, and EMX Royalty Corp.
“All nominees and appointees will comply with the ethical obligations of their respective agencies,” Brian Hughes, a Trump-Vance transition spokesman, also said in a statement.
Trump's team finally signed transition documents on Tuesday pledging to work with the Biden administration on a transfer of power, and part of that pledge was to avoid conflicts of interest.
The energy secretary under Biden, Jennifer Granholm, came under fire for her husband owning stock in Ford Motor Company that she did not disclose.
She claimed she did not know about the stock until her husband sold it in May 2023.
She also got into trouble over whether she boosted electric busmaker Proterra's stock using her official position. She used to sit on the board of Proterra.
Back in 2021, Granholm had to sell 240,000 shares of Proterra for $1.6 million to avoid conflict of interest accusations.
A watchdog group filed a complaint against her, which brought both situations to light.
Granholm's ethical issues may be feeding the current anxiety over Wright.
“Unfortunately, given the track record of the current Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm allegedly flouting rules to divest of Ford stock and Proterra, it is natural for outside observers to be uneasy about how this will play out under a new administration,” Protect the Public’s Trust Director Michael Chamberlain told the Washington Examiner.
In Wright's case, Liberty Energy stock has gone up 6% since he was announced as a Trump nominee. If that doesn't tell us how much of an impact these conflicts can have, nothing will.
