{"id":8211,"date":"2015-06-26T07:29:00","date_gmt":"2015-06-26T07:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www-prod.greenpeace.org\/usa\/?page_id=8211"},"modified":"2024-11-20T19:36:07","modified_gmt":"2024-11-20T19:36:07","slug":"charles-g-koch","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/usa\/climate\/charles-g-koch\/","title":{"rendered":"Charles G. Koch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Charles G. Koch, born in 1935, is the CEO and Chairman of Koch Industries.<\/p>\n\n<p>His father, Fred Koch, was a staunch libertarian and a founder of the John Birch Society. Like his father, Charles is also an ardent supporter of libertarian and conservative organizations. He is a co-founder of the&nbsp;<strong>Cato Institute<\/strong>, the Chairman of the&nbsp;<strong>Institute for Humane Studies<\/strong>, board member of the&nbsp;<strong>Mercatus Center at George Mason University<\/strong>, and has sponsored multiple conferences for entrepreneurs to encourage them to fund free-market groups. Charles has even applied his libertarian ideology to the structure of&nbsp;<strong>Koch Industries<\/strong>, using his own trademarked \u201cMarket Based Management\u201d to run the entire company. \u201cJust as central planning is a failure in running government, so it is at the level of the firm,\u201d says Charles.<\/p>\n\n<p>The&nbsp;<strong>U.S. Senate investigated Charles Koch<\/strong>&nbsp;for his alleged role in funding so-called \u201cissue ads\u201d that violated campaign law by helping conservative&nbsp;<strong>Republican<\/strong>&nbsp;congressional candidates in 1996.<strong>Koch Industries<\/strong>&nbsp;has been the&nbsp;<strong>largest oil and gas industry contributor<\/strong>&nbsp;to electoral campaigns since the 2006 election cycle. During the 2008 elections,&nbsp;<strong>Koch Industries<\/strong>&nbsp;contributed over $1.8 million, 88% to&nbsp;<strong>Republican<\/strong>&nbsp;candidates.<\/p>\n\n<p>Charles and his brother David were involved in a decades-long family dispute with their brothers, Bill and Fred, regarding a buy-out of company shares.&nbsp; Bill and Fred claimed that Charles and David shortchanged them by $340 million. The vicious lawsuits began in the early 1980s and continued for nearly two decades.<\/p>\n\n<p><em>See also PolluterWatch profiles of&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/polluterwatch.com\/koch-industries\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Koch Industries<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/polluterwatch.com\/charles-koch\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Charles Koch<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/polluterwatch.com\/david-koch\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">David Koch<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Charles G. Koch, born in 1935, is the CEO and Chairman of Koch Industries. His father, Fred Koch, was a staunch libertarian and a founder of the John Birch Society. Like his father, Charles is also an ardent supporter of libertarian and conservative organizations. He is a co-founder of the&nbsp;Cato Institute, the Chairman of the&nbsp;Institute [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":8217,"parent":5355,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_hide_page_title_checkbox":"","p4_title":"","p4_subtitle":"","p4_description":"","background_image_id":"","background_image":"","p4_button_title":"","p4_button_link":"","p4_button_link_checkbox":"","p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[127,100,6],"class_list":["post-8211","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-koch-brothers","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-climate"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v23.9 (Yoast SEO v23.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Charles G. Koch - Greenpeace<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/usa\/climate\/charles-g-koch\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Charles G. Koch\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Charles G. Koch, born in 1935, is the CEO and Chairman of Koch Industries. His father, Fred Koch, was a staunch libertarian and a founder of the John Birch Society. Like his father, Charles is also an ardent supporter of libertarian and conservative organizations. 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