Don Blankenship

Donald Leon Blankenship (born March 14, 1950) is an American business executive, political candidate, and convicted criminal.

After graduating from Matewan High School in Matewan, West Virginia, in 1968, Blankenship earned a bachelor's degree in accounting from Marshall University in 1972 in three school years, having worked as a coal miner during summertime.

Blankenship is certified as a public accountant.

In a 1980s documentary, he said, "It's like a jungle, where a jungle is survival of the fittest. Unions, communities, people—everybody's gonna have to learn to accept that in the United States you have a capitalist society, and that capitalism, from a business standpoint, is survival of the most productive."

Blankenship joined Massey Energy subsidiary Rawl Sales & Processing Co., in 1982.

He went on to serve Massey Energy in a number of capacities.

He was promoted to president of Massey Coal Services, Inc. (1989–1991), then president and chief operating officer from 1990 to 1991.

In 1992, Blankenship was named president, chairman of the board of A.T. Massey.

He is the first non-Massey family member to be in charge of the company.

In 1996, Blankenship was elected to the board of directors of engineering and construction company Fluor Corporation.

He also serves as a director of the Center for Energy and Economic Development, a director of the National Mining Association, Mission West Virginia Inc, and was on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce board of directors.

When A.T. Massey was spun off from Fluor Corporation as Massey Energy in 2000, Blankenship became the newly independent company's chairman and CEO.

In 2002, he was inducted into the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants' Business and Industry Hall of Fame.

Blankenship has also been included in the Tug Valley Mining Institute Hall of Fame.

He was chairman and CEO of the Massey Energy Company—the sixth-largest coal company (by 2008 production) in the United States —from 2000 until 2010 when an explosion at Massey's Upper Big Branch Mine resulted in the death of 29 workers.

He was imprisoned for 1 year for conspiring to violate federal mine safety standards.

It was a $6.8 million raise over 2008, and almost double his compensation package in 2007.

During a speech at the Tug Valley Mining Institute on November 20, 2008, Blankenship called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Harry Reid and former Vice President Al Gore "crazies" and "greeniacs."

He has spoken out against media coverage and what he calls false attacks by liberal media.

He has also said "the truth needs to be told about what happened at the Upper Big Branch coal mine" on the basis that a single individual from the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration was chosen to investigate the disaster.

Blankenship was paid $17.8 million (~$ in ) in 2009, the highest in the coal industry.

Blankenship also received a deferred compensation package valued at $27.2 million (~$ in ) in 2009.

On December 3, 2010, Blankenship announced that he was retiring as CEO at the end of the year and would be succeeded by Massey President Baxter F. Phillips Jr. Blankenship had a reputation for resistance to spending money, willingness to litigate for contract difficulties, and personally going into mines to persuade workers to abandon union organizing efforts.

In 2011, Blankenship incorporated McCoy Coal Group, a coal company in Kentucky (not to be confused with the James River Coal Company subsidiary McCoy-Elkhorn Coal Corp).

McCoy has yet to seek mining permits.

Blankenship is an active participant in West Virginia politics.

On December 3, 2015, Blankenship was found guilty of one misdemeanor charge of conspiring to willfully violate mine safety and health standards in relation to the Upper Big Branch Mine explosion, and was sentenced to one year in prison.

He has frequently spoken out about politics, the environment, unions, and coal production.

In 2018, Blankenship lost a three-way Republican primary for the U.S. Senate to Patrick Morrisey.

Citing false information and dirty politics for his loss and claiming a personal unwillingness to quit, Blankenship attempted to run as the Constitution Party nominee, but was unable to get on the ballot and later endorsed Morrisey.

In January 2024, he declared his candidacy as a Democrat for the United States Senate seat held by retiring Senator Joe Manchin.

Blankenship had switched his party registration sometime in 2023.

Blankenship was born in Stopover, Kentucky, and raised in Delorme, West Virginia.

His father served in the Korean War and his mother, Nancy McCoy, was a member of the McCoy family.

The two divorced soon after Blankenship was born, and with the money from her divorce settlement Blankenship's mother ran a convenience store and gas station for 40 years.

Citing his displeasure with federal handling of the coal industry, and his longtime criticisms of the condition of West Virginia politics in general, Blankenship ran for U.S. Senate in the 2018 Senate election, challenging incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Joe Manchin.

His television ads were aimed at "getting the truth out" about the Upper Big Branch explosion and "exposing the government cover-up."

The ads further claimed Blankenship had documents showing that the MSHA Upper Big Branch internal report was falsified and that the company was forced by the MSHA to use a defective ventilation system.

He also expressed a belief that Donald Trump's proposed Mexico-United States border wall in conjunction ending sanctuary cities would help stop drug trafficking.

Blankenship said he was "Trumpier than Trump" but that the establishment was misinforming him because they did not want him "to be in the U.S. Senate and promote the president's agenda."