The Ultra-Wealthy Conflicted Tech Investor’s New Four-Year Strategic Plan Swaps Outdoor Stewardship for Sell-Offs, Privatization, and Exploitation
HELENA, MT – Interior Secretary Doug Burgum just released a new Interior Department Strategic Plan, a four-year blueprint that would sell off public lands, advance park privatization, gut an already-hollowed-out workforce, and clear the way for data centers on public lands. Burgum, who cashed in upwards of $15.1 million from his AI and data center investments, declared speculative data centers and artificial intelligence – primary drivers of the soaring energy demand – the centerpiece of the department's strategy.
Behind the newly released plan's talk is nothing more than a carefully crafted fail-by-design sell-off and privatization scheme. Burgum commits the Interior Department to “decrease the size of the federal estate” by offering a “direct transfer of lands.” It pledges to further “consolidate its workforce” at agencies like the National Park Service that have already lost 24% of permanent staff, and expand unchecked resource development in the service of artificial intelligence, data centers, and extractive special interests.
“Burgum's four-year plan isn't a strategy for stewardship; it's a fail-by-design scheme to gut the people who protect our parks and public lands, then sell off what's left to AI data center developers and his extractive resource buddies,” said Save Our Parks spokesperson Jayson O'Neill. “As an ultra-wealthy tech investor who profits off AI and data centers, Burgum’s conflicts couldn’t be clearer. Yet he’s rewriting Interior's mission around building data centers on the public land all American people own.”
The plan was released shortly after Burgum's own stake in AI and data centers was finally exposed. The billionaire secretary made upwards of $15.1 million in profit last year on some $64.4 million investments held in AI-related software corporations and data center developers. He was also recently granted Defense Production Act authority to approve, among other things, data center construction on public lands.
To speak with Save Our Parks spokesperson Jayson O’Neill, email jayson@focalpointstrategygroup.com.
###