Thomas Boone Pickens, Jr. was born on May 22, 1928 in Holdenville, Oklahoma to a father who leased land rights (oil and mineral). As a boy, Pickens ran a paper route with 28 deliveries which he quickly expanded to 156. Pickens would later attribute this early business practice to his later success in acquiring and expanding businesses.

In the late 1930s, Pickens and his family moved from Oklahoma to Amarillo, Texas. After finishing his high school education, Pickens attended the University of Texas A&M, later transferring to Oklahoma A&M (now called Oklahoma State University). Pickens graduated with a degree in geology in 1951 and soon found a job with Philips Petroleum. He worked at Philips until 1954, after which he worked with exploratory well digging. In 1956 Pickens founded Mesa Petroleum.

Mesa grew quickly under T. Boone Pickens' watchful eye and eventually acquired Hugoton Production Company which, at the time, was more than 30 times as big as Mesa. Pickens continued to grow his business and, by 1981, Mesa had become one of the largest independent oil companies in the world. Pickens continued to purchase smaller companies but also set his sights on larger targets including Gulf Oil, Philips Petroleum, and eventually Diamond Shamrock. While not all of his takeover attempts were successful, Pickens became well known for his ruthless attempts at acquiring new companies.

In 1989 Pickens moved Mesa to Dallas where, eight years later, he founded BP Captial Management (named for Boone Pickens and not associated with British Petroleum) which has two hedge funds, Capital Commodity and Captial Equity, both dealing with oil and natural gas. Pickens' own stake in the funds earned him $2.7 billion in 2007.

In 1997 T. Boone Pickens created the Pickens Fuel Corp., a company promoting the use of natural gas a cleaner-burning fuel-alternative for automobiles. As a result of his research and efforts in the oil industry, Pickens has supported the claim that the world's oil supply is on the decline and that companies need to start investing in not only alternative fuels, but also domestic sources. The company was renamed Clean Energy in 2001.

Pickens first started warning the public against high oil prices in late 2007. His predictions of one barrel of oil costing more than $100 became a reality in 2008 when the prices shot up to $145 and eventually settled under $110. Pickens has since warned that there is a cap on oil production and that the US needs to find alternative, domestic, renewable energy sources to cut the price to the consumer as well as decrease the dependence on foreign oil.

In June 2007 T. Boone Pickens began promoting the world's largest wind farm which he planned for the northwest corner of Texas. According to his plan, Pickens' wind farm would produce up to four gigawatts of electricity and include up to 2700 wind turbines on almost 200,000 acres of the Texas Panhandle.

In July of 2008, Pickens introduced "The Pickens Plan", a proposal to reinvent US energy resources by promoting oil-alternatives such as natural gas, wind power, and solar energy. A major part of his plan is to replace current natural gas demands with wind power, freeing up the gas for use in other areas like automotive fuels. The Pickens Plan promotes the idea of using the central areas of the US that run from Texas up to Wisconsin and Minnesota as the primary field for collecting wind energy. This area, also known as the Great Plains (and sometimes Tornado Alley), has some of the highest potential for wind energy in the world. According to Pickens, the plan would not only promote jobs, but also create a central location for energy resources in the US due to it's equidistant location between the two coasts.

Over the course of his career, Pickens has contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to various charities and Universities including Oklahoma State University, relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina, The University of Texas, and various programs supporting the well-being of families, children, teenagers, and animals.