On the day after Doug Burgum became governor of North Dakota in 2016, he addressed questions about what he would do about all of his wealthy investments.
They included extensive real estate developments benefiting from state programs that he was suddenly in a position to oversee. His answer was that he would “manage” his conflicts of interest, but he would not divest from his holdings in the state.
“The issue here is to make sure that I have no conflict of interest relative to many state programs and decisions,” he said at the time in an interview with a local newspaper.
Since then, however, his range of holdings, which include extensive urban real estate development in the state, tens of millions in technology investments as well as oil and gas leases, intersected with his policy decisions as governor, a New York Times review has found.
That is particularly true for extensive development efforts in downtown Fargo that have been the beneficiaries of targeted state and federal tax benefits. But at the time, he did not disclose the specifics of any potential conflicts or how he managed them.
