Interior Secretary Who's Pushing AI Data Centers On Public Land Has AI Investments

Recent reporting shows that U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum has major AI investments while pushing AI data centers to be placed on public land.

Photo by: NPS / Kelsey Graczyk

By: Jonathon Klein

Nov 7, at 7:33am ET

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While Utah Senator Mike Lee deservedly gets most of the online hate for his vile stance on our public lands, we really should also be laser-focused on U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, too, as that man has far more power than Lee, and has made it his mission to help Lee and his public land sell-off compatriots at every point.

Not only has he helped usher in the sell-off and privatization of countless parcels of public land, but he's helped lay off staffers within the Department of the Interior, push through the relocation of the Forest Service headquarters, funnel national parks budgets into ridiculous and vain Washington, D.C. "beautification" quagmires like the Reflecting Pool fiasco, has attempted to kill the Roadless Rule, helped cull national monuments, and countless other real-world public land catastrophes.

Basically, he's done his level best to reduce the public's public land and sell it off or give it to investors, billionaires, and extractive industries. Like Lee, he's a Captain Planet villain. And his latest public stunts have been about how we need to put AI data centers on public lands—at a time when public sentiment on data centers is at an all-time low—because it's for the good of the country or something.

Who then could've guessed, in an administration as corrupt as this one, that Burgum would be heavily invested in the AI industry? Oh, maybe everyone? Well, according to a recent ProPublica investigation, Burgum has millions tied up in investments in that very industry.

AI data centers have become a third rail in American politics as of late. Though towns and cities have bent over backwards to install them wherever they could, and billionaires and tech investors have scrambled to build them to get their bag during the AI boom that's currently happening, Americans at large have rejected them en masse.

It should be noted that it's increasingly looking like the AI bubble is about to pop due to a variety of factors, though the biggest seems to be none of these companies are actually making money or anything of worth—a reminder: RideApart will never use AI for anything.

But the public's backlash against data centers has been swift and forceful, with protests, the unseating of local officials who greenlit projects, and general unrest—see the pushback to Kevin O'Leary's Utah-based Stratos Project as evidence.

Yet, despite all that backlash and the public's general consensus that we don't want, nor do we need, data centers at all—they're tools for mass surveillance and to line a handful of billionaires' already stuffed pockets—Secretary Burgum has been pushing for the installation of data centers on public lands. And no, they wouldn't even be publicly owned data centers. They'd be privately held, with the corporations just using our public lands basically free of charge and able to pollute and destroy them to their hearts' content.

Now, according to ProPublica, it's been revealed that Burgum has invested millions into AI companies across the board, which might be why he's so gung-ho about putting them on public lands.

"Much of [Burgum's] wealth is held in Arthur Ventures, an investment firm he co-founded, according to his 2026 financial disclosure form, which has not been previously reported," states ProPublica's investigation, adding, "Between $18.1 million and $64.4 million of those investments are in AI companies, according to an analysis of the companies’ marketing materials shared with ProPublica by public lands advocacy group Save Our Parks. (Government financial disclosure forms allow filers to report wide ranges instead of the specific value of their investments.)"

The outlet adds, "Burgum made his fortune 25 years ago when he sold a software company to Microsoft and has remained heavily invested in technology. In the year before joining the administration, when he was North Dakota’s governor, he made between $2.1 million and $11 million in capital gains from AI-related investments, Save Our Parks’ analysis showed. In 2025, he sold millions of dollars of stocks and equity in AI companies, bringing in capital gains worth between $2.5 million and $15.1 million."

In a very telling line, ProPublica states, "In the ethics agreement Burgum signed as part of his Senate confirmation, he agreed to resign from his positions at Arthur but not give up his financial interests there."

So while he can't make direct decisions at Arthur Ventures, he's invested to the hilt in the AI boom, making his push for AI data centers on public lands a massive ethics issue. When reached for comment, his Department of the Interior spokesperson said that Burgum has met all the ethics requirements. Obviously, that's not the case, as it's a clear conflict of interest, but one that's absolutely in line with Burgum and his Secretary counterparts' actions since taking office.

There are some silver linings here. First, we now know about Burgum's financial ties thanks to ProPublica. Light is often the best disinfectant for corruption. Second, the public absolutely hates data centers. Whereas public lands have near-universal approval ratings, data centers have near-universal disapproval. That'll make it difficult to push these through, even with Burgum's power over the department.

And lastly, we're about to get a new Congress. Both the House and Senate got flipped, and at the start of the next term, the folks on the committees that oversee the Department of the Interior and our public lands are set to change drastically. Senator Lee will be out of his position as Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, and my hope is that the Democrats install New Mexico's Senator Martin Heinrich in his place, as he's been a consistent, vocal supporter of the outdoors, our public lands, and the outdoor industry.

What do you think?

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Heinrich helped a great deal during the "Big, Beautiful Bill" showdown last year and the removal of the land sales provisions Lee kept putting in.

But what this investigation into Burgum shows us is that those tasked with protecting our national interests, those tasked with protecting what conservationist Randy Newberg likes to call "one of the great forms of undistributed wealth ever," are not looking out for you or I. They're in it to enrich themselves. And those organizations that have supported, and continue to support Burgum and his cronies, are in their pockets, too.