America's secretary of energy under Donald Trump. Previously chief executive of Liberty Energy. A shale driller by background. He was appointed at the urging of Harold Hamm, a shale billionaire from Oklahoma who backed Trump's campaign.
Wright describes himself as a lifelong energy entrepreneur. He argues that climate change is "not an existential crisis but a real, physical phenomenon that is a by-product of progress", and that most green energy policies bring only exclusion and scarcity. He notes that hydrocarbons made up 82% of American primary energy consumption in 2024, and that natural gas alone supplies over 40% of American electricity and 25% of global primary energy.
Wright has said that calling carbon dioxide "a pollutant is just nuts" and that the "bigger risk" is not too much CO₂ but "too little". Employees at the DoE's energy-efficiency office have been instructed to avoid the term "climate change".
Absence makes the heart grow frantic.