NEW YORK, July 24. /TASS/. US Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump uses funds from heads of American oil companies as the main source of funding for his re-election campaign. He promises the oil business to increase the support for the extraction industry and to abolish the current administration’s climate initiatives, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) says.

The newspaper named Continental Resources Inc. Chairman Harold Hamm, Energy Transfer LP Chairman Kelcy Warren, Hilcorp founder Jeffery Hildebrand and GeoSouthern Energy owner George Bishop as the key sponsors of the Republican campaign. The four billionaires have already donated at least $9.9 million to the Trump headquarters, the WSJ reports, citing the US Federal Election Commission data.

According to WSJ sources, heads of various oil and gas corporations have transferred a total of $16 million to the Trump campaign since October, 2023. Meanwhile, they donated a total of $20 million for the two previous campaigns. Earlier in May, Hamm, Warren, Hildebrand and Bishop organized another fundraiser, raising $41 billion in one day.

The oil tycoons that support Trump skeptically view the climate change concept, advocate the reduction of green energy funding and hope that the Republican candidate will increase the support for the fossil fuel industry multifold. Meanwhile, US oil and gas giants Exxon Mobil and Chevron avoid supporting Trump publicly. According to the WSJ, this happens because both companies benefit from the inflation reduction law, adopted by the Biden Administration, which includes subsidies for development of carbon capture technologies, which both ExxonMobil and Chevron invest in.

Trump has repeatedly publicly challenged the scientific credibility of the global warming concept. In 2017, he withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement. He claimed that this treaty redistributes American wealth in favor of other countries, and its implementation may lead to the loss of millions of jobs for the United States. By November, 2020, the country finalized its withdrawal process, but, after Joe Biden became president, he signed a decree on Washington’s return to the agreement.