Charles de Ganahl Koch is an American billionaire businessman.
40 Facts About Charles Koch
2.
Charles Koch Industries is the largest privately held company by revenue in the United States, according to Forbes.
3.
Charles Koch contributes to the Republican Party and candidates, libertarian groups, and various charitable and cultural institutions.
4.
Charles Koch has published three books detailing his business philosophy, The Science of Success, Market Based Management, and Good Profit.
5.
Charles Koch was born and lives in Wichita, Kansas, one of four sons of Clementine Mary and Fred Chase Charles Koch.
6.
Charles Koch's grandfather, Harry Charles Koch, was a Dutch immigrant who settled in West Texas, founded the Quanah Tribune-Chief newspaper, and was a founding shareholder of Quanah, Acme and Pacific Railway.
7.
Charles Koch is a member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity.
8.
Charles Koch is director of resin and fiber company Invista and director of Georgia-Pacific LLC, paper and pulp products.
9.
Charles Koch founded or helped found several organizations, including the Cato Institute, the Institute for Humane Studies and the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, the Bill of Rights Institute, and the Market-Based Management Institute.
10.
Charles Koch is a member of the Mont Pelerin Society.
11.
Charles Koch describes himself as a classical liberal and has formerly identified as a libertarian.
12.
Charles Koch's opposition to corporate welfare includes lobbying for the end to ethanol subsidies even though Koch Industries is a major ethanol producer.
13.
Charles Koch cited the "current health care debacle" as an example of disastrous government control.
14.
Charles Koch has been on the board of IHS since 1966.
15.
In 2008, Charles Koch was included in Businessweek's list of top 50 American givers.
16.
In June 2019, the Charles Koch Foundation announced the foundation of anti-war think tank Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, cosponsored by George Soros' Open Society Foundations.
17.
Charles Koch is a board member at the Mercatus Center, a market-oriented research think tank at George Mason University.
18.
Charles Koch has underwritten scholarships and financed the research of economists such as James Buchanan and Friedrich Hayek.
19.
Charles Koch has given to the Youth Entrepreneurs, an organization that teaches business skills to at-risk youth in Kansas schools.
20.
Charles Koch acknowledges anthropogenic climate change, but opposes top-down government regulation as a solution.
21.
Charles Koch has heavily funded organizations and politicians who oppose environmental regulations.
22.
Charles Koch has supported the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, a scientific effort to compile an open database of the Earth's surface temperature records.
23.
The Pacific Legal Foundation, funded by Charles Koch, has litigated against increased environmental regulation.
24.
Together with ExxonMobil's, Charles Koch's wealth was supplied to the Independent Institute, another think-tank known for lobby in favor of climate change denial.
25.
Charles Koch has given money to the American Institute for Economic Research, a right-wing libertarian think tank which lobbies against climate science.
26.
Charles Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity has fought efforts by the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon emissions.
27.
Charles Koch has backed the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the CO2 Coalition, both of which supported former President Donald Trump's 2017 withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement.
28.
In 2022, Charles Koch was named one of the US' top 'climate villains' by The Guardian.
29.
Charles Koch has given money to the American Institute for Economic Research, the right-wing libertarian think tank which sponsored the Great Barrington Declaration.
30.
The declaration's sponsor employed Emergent Order, a public relations firm which itself receives funding from Charles Koch's Foundation, registered as $1.4 million between 2014 and 2019.
31.
Charles Koch supported his brother's candidacy for vice president on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1980.
32.
In 2011, Koch was awarded the William E Simon Prize for Philanthropic Leadership.
33.
For roughly a decade Charles Koch has been advocating for several reforms within the prison system, including the reduction of recidivist criminals, easing the employment process for rehabilitated persons, and the defense of private property from asset forfeiture.
34.
In February 2016, Charles Koch penned an opinion piece in The Washington Post, where he said he agreed with presidential candidate Bernie Sanders about the unfairness of corporate welfare and mass incarceration in the United States.
35.
In 2020, Charles Koch's Charles Koch Industries donated $2.8 million to Republican Party causes through a political action committee.
36.
Charles Koch added that he intended to work with Democrats, moderate Republicans, and liberals to facilitate bipartisanship.
37.
In 2002, Charles Koch Industries donated $6 million to renovate the Wichita State University basketball arena.
38.
Charles Koch has continued to be a major donor to both the university and its athletic program.
39.
Several months later, when men's basketball head coach Gregg Marshall was considering an offer to become head coach at the University of Alabama, Charles Koch led a group of local business leaders and WSU boosters that raised Marshall's annual salary from $1.85 million to $3 million and kept him at the school.
40.
Charles Koch has two children, Chase Koch and Elizabeth Koch.