President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for energy secretary, Chris Wright, expects to resign as a board member from a company that recently received taxpayer-backed grants — getting ahead of possible conflict of interest accusations.
Wright, the CEO of Liberty Energy, is on the board of directors for Oklo, a nuclear energy company in California backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. In 2022 and 2023, the Energy Department awarded grants totaling $2.7 million to Oklo until 2025 and 2026, according to federal funding records.
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To watchdog groups, it would be a clear conflict of interest and in violation of federal rules for Wright, if confirmed by the Senate, to remain on the board of Oklo. A Trump-Vance transition official, however, told the Washington Examiner that Wright is set to resign from all company boards he sits on upon confirmation.
“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.
Wright is also chairman of the board for Liberty Energy, an oilfield services company, and on the board of EMX Royalty Corp, a company generating royalties from metals and minerals properties. A Liberty Energy spokesperson declined to comment, directing the Washington Examiner to the Trump-Vance transition team.
Wright’s industry ties underscore how nominees are often advisers and executives at influential entities that coordinate with the federal government and, in some cases, reap funding from taxpayers. Federal rules that aim to uphold ethics prohibit officials from having conflicts of interest in their official capacities, and nominees are eventually asked to fill out public financial disclosure reports detailing their financial and professional ties.
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The Office of Government Ethics, an agency responsible for directing federal policies to prevent conflicts of interest, has a resource on its website detailing laws surrounding nominees and outside relationships. Nominees are also supposed to divest from investments that could pose conflicts.
The Energy Department’s obligations to Oklo are split between three awards worth $1.9 million, $660,000, and $140,000, respectively, according to funding records.
In October, the Energy Department approved a design for an Oklo facility at Idaho National Laboratory, according to a press release.
“Every member of the incoming administration has a responsibility to avoid conflicts of interest,” said Nick Penniman, the CEO of a money-in-politics watchdog group called IssueOne. “Too many Americans think people go into government to serve themselves and not the public good.”
Penniman added, “Chris Wright and others need to show taxpayers that the decisions they make aren’t driven by their own economic gain.”
On Tuesday, Trump’s team signed an agreement with the Biden-Harris administration to work with agencies on the transition, and also posted its own “ethics plan” document on the General Services Administration’s website. The document, which is four pages long, says transition team members “will avoid both actual and apparent conflicts of interest.”
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The delay of the agreement’s signing caused uproar in Washington, where Democrats expressed concerns that Trump would not abide by norms of his predecessors for the transition of power. Now, Trump-appointed “landing teams” will receive certain government briefings at agencies from career employees.
Protect the Public’s Trust Director Michael Chamberlain said high-ranking officials such as Wright are required to resign from boards and avoid conflicts of interest during their tenure — obligations identified in the confirmation process with the help of senior ethics officials in government.
Jennifer Granholm, who has served as energy secretary under President Joe Biden, notably came under the spotlight during her tenure over ethics controversies. Granholm was slammed in an ethics complaint last year by Chamberlain’s watchdog group over her admission to Congress that her husband held Ford Motor Company stock despite Biden approving subsidies benefiting the company.
The shares were previously not disclosed, with Granholm claiming she only knew of them upon a stock sale in May.
Even before the Ford issue, a company called Proterra was a thorn in Granholm’s side.
Republicans and outside watchdog groups demanded investigations into whether Granholm used her official role to unethically boost the electric vehicle bus-maker Proterra, which used to count Granholm as a board member, upon her appearing at events to tout the company. That’s because the Biden-Harris administration approved federal handouts to EV manufacturers.
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Amid conflict of interest in scrutiny in 2021, Granholm sold off 240,000 shares in Proterra for $1.6 million.
“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,” Chamberlain told the Washington Examiner.
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Wright, a self-described “tech nerd turned entrepreneur,” has led Liberty Energy since 2011. Shares of Liberty Energy stock, a publicly-traded company, are up by around 6% over the last month.
The Office of Government Ethics declined to comment.