Kelcy Warren is the co-founder, largest shareholder, and Executive Chairman of Energy Transfer LP (ET), one of the largest oil and gas pipeline companies in the U.S. Warren is also a major supporter of former President Donald Trump, providing significant campaign contributions in 2016, 2020, and again in 2024. Warren frequently contributes to other federal and state politicians, but Trump and his associated campaign groups have been among the largest recipients. 

Former President Donald Trump’s presidency was four years of chaos, lies, open corruption, and shameless handouts to corporations. Many of his policy changes were environmentally reckless, economically harmful, and socially divisive. He also attempted to overturn a democratic election that members of his own administration described as “the most secure in American history” and has vowed to use another presidential term to enact policies that could move the U.S. towards an autocratic state. 

During his first term, Trump’s barrage of attacks on the environment included withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord, gutting EPA authority, expanding offshore drilling, and weakening or reversing over 125 environmental regulations. Trump’s current campaign makes similar promises to grow the fossil fuel industry at the expense of the health and wellbeing of local communities and the environment. In April 2024, Trump made a brazen proposal to oil and gas billionaires, pledging to enact their agenda in exchange for contributing $1 billion to his reelection campaign. 

The history of Trump and Warren’s alliance goes beyond political donations:

  • Warren’s initial political support of Trump began in his 2016 campaign, to which Warren donated more than $100,000. In the same year, Warren also donated $6 million to a super PAC supporting ET board member Rick Perry’s presidential campaign before Trump secured the nomination (Warren got a $4.5 million refund when Perry dropped out).
  • In his 2015 campaign financial disclosure filing, Trump reported owning Energy Transfer Partners LP (ETP) shares worth between $500,000 and $1 million, as well as between $50,000 and $100,000 in Phillips 66 (which holds a minority stake in the Dakota Access Pipeline). His 2016 financial disclosure showed his ETP holdings dropped to between $15,000 and $50,000, but rose to between $100,000 and $250,000 in Phillips 66. A Trump spokesperson said he sold his ETP shares in December 2016 before taking office in 2017.
  • When asked about whether he was confident that President-elect Trump would help finish the final permitting for the Dakota Access Pipeline during the lame duck period following the 2016 presidential election, Warren stated that he was “100 percent” confident “that the easement gets granted and the pipeline gets built”. 
  • Warren then donated $250,000 to Trump’s inauguration. Within days of taking office, Trump signed an executive order clearing the way for DAPL to complete construction and begin operating.
  • Trump appointed former Energy Transfer board member Rick Perry to be Secretary of Energy, where he served from 2 March 2017 to 1 December 2019. Senator Elizabeth Warren called Perry’s return to ET’s board in 2020 “unethical” and demanded he resign from ET’s board. He didn’t, and is still an active board member in 2024.
  • Kelcy Warren also benefited from Trump’s 2017 Tax bill, despite already taking advantage of tax code provisions to pay low to no taxes in some years. ProPublica reported that the 2017 tax law changes made tax deductions for business losses and operations even more profitable for billionaires like Warren.
  • Trump also appointed Warren to the coveted Kennedy Center board of Trustees, and he is still a trustee as of August 2024. 
  • Trump invited Warren to an April 2020 White House strategy session along with other fossil fuel billionaires, pledging afterwards to “make funds available to these very important companies” during the pandemic. 
  • In June 2020, Warren hosted Trump’s first in-person fundraiser after the COVID-19 outbreak at his mansion in Preston Hollow (a Dallas, TX neighborhood), where Trump raised $10 million from an estimated 25 attendees in about an hour. 
  • In August 2020, Warren donated $10 million to the America First Action super PAC, a pro-Trump PAC created by the American First Policy Institute, an organization launched by former Trump advisors. The Institute wrote the 2024 America First Agenda which echoes many of the controversial Project 2025 policy recommendations.
  • Although Warren initially supported Ron DeSantis in the 2024 GOP primary, as of early 2024 Warren was once again one of Trump’s biggest donors and hosted a private fundraiser for Trump. Warren has given the maximum allowed $814,600 contribution to the Trump 47 Committee, which sends the donations to a PAC that covers Trump’s legal fees, not the RNC. In May 2024, he donated $5 million to the Make America Great Again super PAC.

Powerful alliances between individuals focused on power and profits do not serve the interests of the people. Today, Warren’s company is suing Greenpeace in a vindictive, baseless SLAPP lawsuit for our solidarity with water protectors and activists in opposition of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The case illustrates Warren’s hope that protestors and critics of pipelines be “removed from the gene pool”. ET aims to make an example out of Greenpeace so that other organizations and individuals are too intimidated to challenge pipeline operations. These types of legal harassment are long supported by Trump.

Sign our open letter to tell Energy Transfer that we will not be silenced, and vote for a future that protects your right to speak out. 

¹ In 2015 and 2016, Energy Transfer LP was named Energy Transfer Partners LP. The general company changed its name to Energy Transfer LP in 2018 after a merger between Energy Transfer Partners and Energy Transfer Equity.