Greg Gianforte moved to Bozeman in 1995, started a software company there two years later, and sold it to Oracle in 2011 for $1.5 billion. He then entered politics. As of February 2026, he is the 25th governor of Montana, a post he has held since January 4, 2021, and since November 2025 he has also chaired the Republican Governors Association.
Early years and first companies
Gregory Richard Gianforte was born April 17, 1961, in San Diego, California, and grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs. He graduated from Upper Merion Area High School in 1979. At Stevens Institute of Technology he earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and a master’s in computer science, both in 1983.
His first job out of school was at Bell Labs. He later co-founded Brightwork Development, a software firm that McAfee Associates bought in 1994 for $10 million. The following year he relocated to Bozeman, the Montana college town that became his home base for business and, later, for his political career.
RightNow Technologies
In 1997, Gianforte and his wife, Susan, co-founded RightNow Technologies. The company went public in 2004, and by then it employed more than 1,000 people. Oracle acquired it in 2011 in a deal worth $1.5 billion.
The Gianfortes also set up the Gianforte Family Foundation in 2004. It has made sizable charitable gifts over the years, among them a donation to a creationist museum in Montana. Gianforte is a Young Earth creationist. The couple married in 1988, have four children and attend Grace Bible Church in Bozeman.
Moving into politics
Gianforte first sought the governorship in 2016 and lost to Steve Bullock. The next year he ran in a special election for Montana’s U.S. House seat, vacated when Ryan Zinke became Interior Secretary. The vote took place May 25, 2017.
The race drew national attention the day before it. On May 24, 2017, Gianforte assaulted Ben Jacobs, a reporter for The Guardian. He later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault. The sentence included community service, anger management therapy, a deferred sentence and a fine. Gianforte apologized to Jacobs and gave $50,000 to the Committee to Protect Journalists. He won the election anyway and was sworn in on June 21, 2017.
Voters sent him back to the House in 2018. In 2020 he ran for governor a second time, defeating Mike Cooney, and he took office in January 2021. He won reelection in 2024 against Ryan Busse.
Governor and national role
Gianforte’s career is unusual in that the company and the political career share a hometown. The business he built in Bozeman made him one of the state’s best-known entrepreneurs before he held any elected office, and the same city remains where he and his family live and worship.
On November 18, 2025, he became chair of the Republican Governors Association, the national organization that works to elect the party’s candidates in governors’ races. The role gives him a visible position outside Montana while he continues to serve as the state’s chief executive.
In outline, the record runs from an engineering education in the Northeast, through Bell Labs and two software companies, to the House and then the governor’s office: a Bozeman business, a congressional seat won in 2017, and two terms atop state government that began in 2021.
Source: Wikipedia, Greg Gianforte.