Trump turns on Big Oil donors who spent nearly $100 million to get him elected—now he wants the DOJ to investigate them for price gouging

Oil and gas chiefs may have quietly cracked a smile when Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election. Oil billionaire Harold Hamm, founder of Continental Resources, called it “the most important election in our lifetime” as he made calls urging energy executives to donate to Trump’s campaign. Vicki Hollub, who heads up Occidental Petroleum, also called Trump’s win “very positive” for the oil and gas sector. And for his part, Trump similarly wooed the industry during the campaign, pledging environmental rollbacks and lax tax structures. But the special relationship between the president and the country’s fossil fuel industry has been frosty as of late. After months of increased gas prices and concerns of inflation and affordability, Trump has started pointing fingers at some of his closest industry backers who have courted him just years earlier. Writing in a Truth Social post Wednesday morning, Trump seemed to blame the industry for the sky-high gas prices Americans are feeling at the pump. “The big Oil Companies are not dropping their price at the pump commensurate with the sharply lower prices they are paying for Oil,” he wrote. “In other words, customers are being ‘gouged,’” he continued, adding he had instructed the Justice Department to investigate the issue, although offered no details on timeline. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Trump explicitly accused Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, and Shell of not cutting gasoline prices despite oil costs having fallen in recent weeks. Less expensive oil does generally translate to lower prices at the pump, but that process can take weeks to months, given the various additional costs that go into determining the final price consumers pay. For months, the economy has been saddled with sticky gasoline prices stemming from the conflict in the Middle East and resulting energy shock. The situation benefited energy companies for a time, as the six largest oil and gas firms saw their market capitalization soar $130 billion in t