Billionaire and longshot presidential candidate Doug Burgum says he would NOT do business with Donald Trump but would with Elon Musk because ‘you’re judged by the company you keep’
- Longshot 2024 candidate and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum said Sunday that he wouldn’t do business with Donald Trump
- Said he would vote for Trump in 2024 if he were up against President Joe Biden
- Burgum said he would do business with Elon Musk, noting the ‘track record’ difference between Trump and the Twitter and Tesla owner
Longshot 2024 candidate and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, 66, said Sunday that he wouldn’t enter into business with former President Donald Trump – but would with Elon Musk.
The billionaire, however, say that he could see himself voting for Trump for president again.
‘I voted for him twice, and if he’s running against Biden I will absolutely vote for him again,’ Burgum said during a Friday campaign event in New Hampshire.
He called the decision to cast his ballot for Trump should he win the 2024 nomination a ‘no-brainer.’
Burgum, who declared his candidacy in June, made his billions off a tech business he sold to Microsoft for $1.1 billion in 2001.
Longshot 2024 candidate and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum said Sunday that he wouldn’t do business with Donald Trump – but has said he would vote for him in 2024 if he were up against Biden
He told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday that he wouldn’t do business with fellow businessman and 2024 candidate Trump.
‘Would you ever do business with Donald Trump?’ NBC host Chuck Todd asked Burgum.
He replied: ‘I don’t think so. I just think that it’s important that you’re judged by the company you keep.’
Burgum would, however, do business with billionaire Twitter and Tesla owner Elon Musk.
‘Just look at business track records is what I would say, and that’s what I would take a peek at before I would make a decision about who you partner with,’ the North Dakota governor said when pressed on the difference between Trump and Musk as businessmen.
The husband and father of three attended Stanford Business School after undergraduate at North Dakota State University. He began his entrepreneurial career early by starting a chimney-sweep business in North Dakota and making it into the Associated Press for conducting business in below-freezing weather in Fargo.
At Stanford, Burgum became friend with Steve Ballmer, who would later become CEO of Microsoft.
After graduation, he mortgaged $250,000 of his farmland to provide the seed capital for accounting software company Great Plains Software in Fargo, North Dakota. Burgum joined the company in 1983. became its president in 1984 and sold it in 2001 to Microsoft for $1.1 billion.
‘I just think that it’s important that you’re judged by the company you keep,’ Burgum said when asked why he wouldn’t do business with Trump – and noted he would enter into business with Elon Musk because he has a better ‘track record’
Burgum was named Senior Vice President of Microsoft Business Solutions Group after selling his software company to the tech giant and stayed with the company until 2007.
In 2016, Burgum became governor of North Dakota and is now running for president.
The 2024 longshot has been less decisive than other candidates on whether he would pardon Trump if he became president. A few are deadset on a pardon while Trump remains under criminal investigation.
In an interview with Hugh Hewitt last month, Burgum said on the topic: ‘You’re asking me a hypothetical question about something from two years from now, when we don’t even know if this is going to go forward or if there’s even going to be a conviction.’
