RECORDS: Trump's Interior Secretary Has Close Ties To The De-Extinction Company He Promotes
As North Dakota governor, Doug Burgum wooed Colossal Biosciences to his state. As Interior Secretary, he publicly champions the biotech company.
When Colossal Biosciences made national headlines earlier this month with its claim to have revived the long-extinct dire wolf, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum was quick to hail the company and tout so-called “de-extinction” as the future of species conservation.
In a lengthy post to social media, Burgum bemoaned the Endangered Species Act as a sort of Hotel California — “once a species enters, they never leave” — and said “the marvel of ‘de-extinction’ technology can help forge a future where populations are never at risk.” Burgum repeated his praise for Colossal a few days later, at an all-hands meeting of Interior Department staff, once again contrasting the promise of biotech with his criticism of the ESA.
Led by tech entrepreneur Ben Lamm and backed by celebrity investors including Tom Brady and Paris Hilton, Colossal has emerged as a controversial new player in the conservation world, promising Jurassic Park-like feats of de-extinction, along with more modest efforts to expand the gene pool of endangered species like the southeastern red wolf. For the business-minded Burgum, who is deeply skeptical of the ESA and the public land protections that keep wildlife habitat intact, high-tech solutions to conservation challenges are easy to love.
But Burgum's ties to Colossal run deeper than cheering the company on from the sidelines, according to North Dakota records Public Domain obtained. Years before using his cabinet post to promote Colossal, Burgum cultivated close ties with the company's leadership as Governor of North Dakota, where the state’s development fund awarded the company a $3 million equity investment. Burgum has mingled with Lamm, Colossal’s co-founder and CEO, at exclusive, black-tie events and sent Lamm a gift basket following one of those soirées. One of Burgum’s cabinet members went on to join the company as an unpaid advisor.
In March of 2023, Lamm emailed Burgum’s commerce commissioner, Josh Teigen, to follow up on a phone call the two had previously about Colossal executives coming to visit North Dakota.
“I shared the potential with our board and they are excited to us [sic] to work with you on the bison latifons [sic],” Lamm wrote on March 26, misspelling the name of an extinct species of giant, long-horned bison. “Let me know next steps.”
Teigen responded a couple of hours later and offered to help the company secure local partners and financing.
“Your timing is fantastic,” Teigen wrote back. “I just spoke with the Governor on this today and ND is excited to welcome you and Colossal to ND. As next steps, I would propose a conversation between yourself and the Governor and some other key stakeholders in the state who would be partners and/or financing options.”
“Josh, this is awesome news!” Lamm replied. “If we can make the timing work, I’d love to visit in person. But I would like to get these conversations going sooner than later and I have a lot of travel over the next few weeks so virtual may be best for this initial conversation … I would love to also work on dates to come visit in person in parallel.”
Burgum, Teigen and Burgum’s chief of staff met with Lamm and other Colossal executives via video conference on April 5, 2023, the records show. In August of that year, the North Dakota Department of Commerce, which Teigen then led as a member of Burgum’s cabinet, announced Colossal as the recipient of a $3 million investment through its North Dakota Development Fund.
At the time that North Dakota partnered with Colossal, Lamm told The Forum newspaper that the company was attracted to the state because of its business-friendly environment and that it was exploring building a laboratory there.
“Thank you to Josh Teigen and the North Dakota Department of Commerce for taking an interest in our work as we expand our footprint to the northern region. Our woolly's [sic] will certainly appreciate the cooler climate,” Colossal wrote in a LinkedIn post about The Forum article, referring to its ongoing effort to bring back the woolly mammoth.
After leaving state government, Teigen took a role as an unpaid advisor to Colossal. (Aurelia Skipwith Giacometto, who served as director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service during the first Trump administration, is listed on Colossal’s website as a member of the company’s conservation advisory board.)
Burgum’s relationship with Lamm appears to have blossomed since that 2023 meeting. In June of 2024, Lamm emailed Burgum directly to thank him and his wife for a gift basket that they sent a couple months after attending an annual, black-tie dinner of the Explorers Club, an exclusive society of adventurers and scientists founded in 1904. Lamm is a fellow and board member at the Explorers Club.
“Thank you for the gift basket!” Lamm wrote. “Unnecessary, but much appreciated. Your presence at [the Explorers Club Annual Dinner] was a present in itself! I’m so thankful you came and enjoyed the evening.”
Last month Lamm posted to X a picture of him and Burgum together at the 121st Explorers Club annual gala, describing it as an “amazing night with incredible people.”
The Interior Department did not respond to Public Domain’s requests for comment.
Emily Mailaender, a public relations representative for Colossal, described the meetings with Burgum administration officials as routine events for a company seeking to do business in a new state. She stressed that the company works with administrations regardless of political party. The gift basket was a symbolic gesture, containing a puzzle of North Dakota and other items of insignificant monetary value. Burgum’s investment companies have not provided funding to Colossal, she said.
“The video conference between Gov Burgum and Colossal was a standard introductory conversation in relation to Colossal's technology and mission for conservation and de-extinction of species, just like any conversation that we would have with a Governor or legislative member of any state,” Mailaender wrote in an email. “No request for funds was made.”
Mailaender added that Colossal is “in active discussion regarding a variety of business operations in the state, all of which are sensitive and confidential both to Colossal and the state of ND's economic development efforts.”
Teigen also described the meetings between North Dakota officials and Colossal as a normal part of his job as Commerce Commissioner to attract companies to the state.
“The conversation between Ben and Doug was an introductory call for Colossal to share more about what they do and how that could help bolster the biotech industry in the state,” Teigen wrote in a message to Public Domain. His volunteer advisory role at the company “is pretty minimal,” he added, saying that he provides “perspective on occasional topics as they arise.”
Still, Burgum’s personal ties to Colossal are significant given his remarkable enthusiasm for the company.
The ESA is credited with preventing 99 percent of listed species from going extinct. Biologists generally regard habitat loss as the single-greatest threat to biodiversity and wildlife conservation. But in his all-hands speech to Interior staff last month, Burgum painted the ESA as broken — “Right now, people celebrate when [a species] goes on the list” — and appeared to describe Colossal’s emerging biotech as a substitute for the very idea of guarding imperiled species through legal and habitat protections.
“There are now dire wolves that are now living for real that were created through the same kind of technology, with DNA and CRISPR,” Burgum said in his speech. “If we're going to be in anguish about losing a species, then now we have an opportunity to bring them back. I mean, pick your favorite species and call up Colossal and instead of raising money to get animals on the endangered species list, let’s figure out a way to get them off — and this is one tool.”
“I think we have to think about that as an innovation opportunity to transform the way we’ve been thinking about it for the past 50 years and the possibility to bring back species,” he added. “You want carrier pigeons? Let's bring em back. You want dodos? Bring ‘em back.”
As Burgum publicly boosts Colossal, the Interior Department is working to hobble the Endangered Species Act. He has overseen sweeping cuts to Fish and Wildlife staff. His team aims to alter the agency’s endangered species regulations in a manner that would gut much of the government's ability to protect endangered species habitat across the country. A draft strategic plan that Burgum’s agency compiled, which Public Domain first reported on earlier this month, cites “species delisted from endangered list” as a key performance benchmark for the Trump administration over the next four years.
Burgum and his team are moving to “take away most of our regulatory power for most species,” one source at FWS told Public Domain.
Colossal has maintained access to Burgum since he was confirmed to President Donald Trump’s cabinet. Company representatives met with Burgum in March, two months after Burgum took the agency’s helm, to discuss its cloning techniques and how it could assist in conserving species, according to the Washington Post. Burgum posted his support of the company and criticism of the Endangered Species Act days after meeting with Colossal executives. (Colossal has not received federal funding since Trump took office, Mailaender wrote.)
Teigen, the advisor to Colossal, echoed Burgum’s swipe at the ESA in a post to LinkedIn, arguing it has “become a weaponized tool by extremist conservation groups to prevent development.” He applauded his old boss for prioritizing “innovation over regulation” in North Dakota. And he gave a shout out to the biotech company that he helped attract to North Dakota and now advises.
“I never thought I would see the day where we de-extincted a species,” Teigen wrote. “Today, I get to be part of the company that pulled it off. American ingenuity should never be underestimated.”
On its web page about the dire wolf, Colossal recently added a picture of Burgum and a snippet of his statement about how it is “innovation—not regulation that has spawned American greatness” and “the concept of ‘de-extinction’ can serve as a bedrock for modern species conservation.”