Greg Gianforte
Gregory Richard Gianforte is an American politician, businessman, and software engineer serving as the 25th governor of Montana since 2021. A member of the Republican Party, Gianforte served as the U.S. representative for Montana's at-large congressional district from 2017 to 2021.
In 1997, Gianforte and his wife, Susan, co-founded RightNow Technologies, a customer relationship management software company. The company went public in 2004; by that time, it employed over 1,000 workers. RightNow Technologies was acquired by Oracle Corporation for $1.5 billion in 2011.
In 2016, Gianforte ran for governor of Montana as the Republican nominee, losing to incumbent governor Steve Bullock. In May 2017, Gianforte defeated Democratic nominee Rob Quist in a special election for Montana's at-large congressional seat to fill a vacancy created by the appointment of Ryan Zinke as U.S. Secretary of the Interior. Gianforte was convicted of misdemeanor assault in state court in June 2017 stemming from an assault on The Guardian political reporter Ben Jacobs in May 2017. He was fined and sentenced to community service and anger management therapy. Gianforte was reelected in 2018, defeating Democratic nominee Kathleen Williams.
Gianforte did not seek reelection to the House of Representatives in 2020 and instead was a candidate in the 2020 Montana gubernatorial election. In the November general election, he defeated incumbent lieutenant governor Mike Cooney. He is the first Republican to serve as governor of Montana since Judy Martz left office in 2005. He defeated Democrat Ryan Busse in the 2024 Montana gubernatorial election, becoming the first Republican to be elected governor of Montana twice since Marc Racicot in 1996.
Early life and education
Gregory Richard Gianforte was born on April 17, 1961, in San Diego, California. He is the oldest son of Frank Richard Gianforte, who had a career as an aerospace engineer and, later, as a landlord. His mother, Dale Douglass, worked for General Dynamics in San Diego, and later was a school math teacher. Gianforte is of Italian, English, and Scottish ancestry. He has two younger brothers, Douglass and Michael. After the age of three, Gianforte was raised in the Valley Forge and King of Prussia suburbs northwest of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, including Wayne, an affluent unincorporated township community that extends into Montgomery, Chester, and Delaware Counties.During his high school years in the 1970s, Gianforte started a software business. He attended Upper Merion Area High School in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, where he was elected class president during his junior and senior years. Gianforte was also captain of his school football team, where he played left offensive guard. He graduated from high school in 1979.
Gianforte graduated in 1983 from his father's alma mater, Stevens Institute of Technology, with a BE in electrical engineering and a master's degree in computer science. He directed a computer lab with 12 programmers. He was a member of the Delta Tau Delta men's fraternity, and enjoyed playing squash.
Career
Software entrepreneurship
Gianforte began his career in 1983 at Bell Laboratories, working in product acquisition. Frustrated by the bureaucratic corporate hierarchy at Bell Labs, Gianforte departed to co-found Brightwork Development Inc., a developer of server-based LAN management software for the banking industry, which was based in Tinton Falls, New Jersey. He and his partners sold the company to McAfee Associates for $10 million in 1994. Gianforte then began working for McAfee as head of North American sales. In 1995, he moved to Bozeman, Montana.Gianforte and his wife, Susan, a mechanical engineer by trade, co-founded RightNow Technologies in 1997. Part of Gianforte's strategy was to leverage the internet as a means to overcome geographic barriers to building a globalized business. By the time the company went public in 2004, it employed over 1,000 workers and executives in Bozeman and globally, with offices in the U.K., Asia, and Australia. Future U.S. senator Steve Daines was among its executives. The company was acquired by Oracle Corporation for $1.5 billion in 2011. At the time, Gianforte's 20% stake in the company was worth about $290 million. Right Now Technologies had contracts with federal agencies, including handling all of the online search queries for the Social Security Administration and Medicare websites. In 2012, Gianforte sued the Montana Democratic Party for defamation, alleging the House campaign ads it aired critical of then House candidate Daines were libelous. Gianforte alleged the party aired television ads that claimed that Right Now Technologies capitalized itself with public contracts, and then offshored jobs.
In 2005, Gianforte and Marcus Gibson co-wrote the book Bootstrapping Your Business: Start and Grow a Successful Company with Almost No Money. He has offered business lectures on entrepreneurship and building a global business.
Philanthropy and civic life
In 2004, Gianforte and his wife founded the Gianforte Family Foundation, which has promoted his creationist beliefs in the public sphere, and has made tens of millions of dollars in charitable contributions. The foundation describes its primary mission as supporting "the work of faith-based organizations engaged in outreach work, strengthening families, and helping the needy; organizations in Montana that work to improve education, support entrepreneurship, and create jobs; and organizations that enhance the local community of Bozeman, Montana." Gianforte, his wife, and his son, Richard, are the foundation's three trustees. The foundation had assets of $113 million in 2013.The Gianforte Family Foundation has given nearly $900,000 to the Montana Family Foundation, in some years making up half of that organization's total revenue. The Montana Family Foundation has promoted conservative and Christian values in the Montana legislature. Asked why he donated to the group, Gianforte said it was because the organization aligns with his views.
Through his nonprofit, the Gianforte Family Charitable Trust, Gianforte has contributed substantial funds to several conservative organizations. Some have led legal efforts to dismantle federal campaign finance regulations. Gianforte has donated to the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family, which advocate for a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage, as well as the Montana Family Foundation, which is "the state's primary advocate against LGBT policies". Gianforte served on the board of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, an education reform organization founded by economist Milton Friedman which advocates for school vouchers.
Gianforte believes in Young Earth creationism. He has donated at least $290,000 to the Glendive Dinosaur and Fossil Museum, a Montana creationist museum that teaches visitors that the theory of evolution is false, that the Earth is about 6,000–6,400 years old, and that humans and dinosaurs coexisted during the same period. The museum claims dinosaurs were aboard Noah's Ark, and that they likely went extinct 4,300 years ago during the great flood described in the Book of Genesis. The Gianforte Family Foundation also donated a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton replica to the museum.
Affiliations and investments
Gianforte has had a variety of business interests and investments. In November 2013, he was appointed to the board of FICO, which profiles consumer credit risks for lenders. The same month, Gianforte acquired 8,000 shares of FICO, which were then valued at more than $464,000.00. He is a partner in MGRR No. 1, a limited liability company that has received grain subsidies since 1995. Gianforte was the founding board chair of the Montana High Tech Business Alliance. He resigned as chair in June 2017, when he was sworn into Congress.In financial disclosure forms filed in 2017, Gianforte indicated that he owned $150,000 worth of shares in VanEck Vectors Russia ETF and $92,400 in the IShares MSCF Russia ETF, totaling just under $250,000 in two exchange-traded funds focused on investments in Russia. The investments attracted attention because they included shares in Gazprom and Rosneft, which have been subject to U.S. sanctions since the Russian invasion of Crimea, but because the per-person ownership stake in these companies is so small in such index funds, they are exempt from sanctions. After the issue was raised in Gianforte's 2017 congressional campaign, Gianforte stated that his Russia holdings were a small portion of his overall investments and pledged to place all of his assets in a blind trust if elected.
Through a holding corporation, Gianforte owns a 12-seat private jet, which he has used as a strategic asset on the campaign trail. He made the aircraft available to others in his congressional caucus to travel back to Washington for important votes.
U.S. House of Representatives (2017–2021)
Elections
2017 special election campaign
On March 1, 2017, Republican Representative Ryan Zinke of Montana's at-large congressional district resigned his seat after the United States Senate confirmed him as United States Secretary of the Interior. A special election was scheduled to fill the remainder of Zinke's term. Gianforte had already announced his intention to seek the seat on January 25, before Zinke's resignation. At a March 6 convention, the Republican Party nominated Gianforte. He faced Democratic musician and former Montana Arts Council member Rob Quist and Libertarian nominee Mark Wicks in the general election.In a departure from previous pledges made during his gubernatorial campaign, Gianforte relaxed his past pledges to refuse all PAC money, and began to turn away only corporate PAC funding. His campaign began accepting contributions from political party and leadership PACs.
Gianforte distanced himself from Donald Trump during the 2016 Republican presidential primary and did not attend Trump's sole rally in Montana, citing a scheduling conflict. But he endorsed Trump in the 2016 general election and continued to express support for him during his 2017 special election campaign for Congress. Gianforte's campaign was supported by Vice President Mike Pence and Donald Trump Jr., who both stumped for Gianforte in the state. Gianforte tacked close to Trump's political narratives, promoting his outsider status as a first time political candidate, touting his experience as a technology entrepreneur, and criticizing policies leading to sanctuary cities and "the liberal elite."
Gianforte supported repeal of the Affordable Care Act. He declined to say whether he supported the American Health Care Act, the House Republican legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. On May 4, 2017, Gianforte held a private conference call with Republican-leaning lobbyists in Washington in which he offered a more supportive view of the AHCA. He said that it "sounds like we just passed a health care thing, which I'm thankful for. Sounds like we're starting to repeal and replace." Later that May, he said he would not "vote for a repeal and a replace unless I know it protects people with preexisting conditions, lowers rates and preserves rural access". Gianforte assaulted a reporter in response to questions about how the AHCA would make health insurance too expensive for people with preexisting conditions.
Gianforte opposed the legalization of marijuana for recreational use, comparing marijuana to more addictive drugs. He supported allowing the use of medical marijuana for "people in chronic pain, under the care of a doctor."
Gianforte opposes abortion except in cases where a woman's life is in danger. He favors removing federal funding from Planned Parenthood. He has said that he supports government enforcement of nondiscrimination for workers, but not for customers. He opposed increasing the minimum wage. Gianforte supported Executive Order 13769, to ban immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries. He opposed resettlement of refugees in Montana. He opposed sanctuary cities policies. Gianforte blamed the Obama administration for "the situation with Russia" and favored a multilateral strategy to stand against Russian aggression. He supported Trump's decision to fire FBI Director James Comey.
Gianforte opposed efforts to transfer federal lands to the states. He called for changes to the Endangered Species Act. He supported amending the Equal Access to Justice Act to reduce environmental litigation, saying that "environmental extremists" had abused the act. He acknowledged human-caused climate change but "did not have specific ideas on how to address climate change". He has said that "the climate is always changing" and believes that closing coal-fired power plants would not help mitigate climate change. He supported Trump's repeal of the Clean Power Plan and has called for investments in clean coal technology. Gianforte has criticized the length of time the Department of Interior spends to evaluate applications to drill and frack for shale gas.
Gianforte outlined his position on retirement by using the Biblical example of Noah. He said:
There's nothing in the Bible that talks about retirement. And yet it's been an accepted concept in our culture today. Nowhere does it say, "Well, he was a good and faithful servant, so he went to the beach". The example I think of is Noah. How old was Noah when he built the ark? 600. He wasn't, like, cashing Social Security checks. He wasn't hanging out. He was working. So I think we have an obligation to work. The role we have in work may change over time, but the concept of retirement is not biblical.