Trump Picks Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson As Secretary Of State

Tyler Durden's picture

In a move that is certain to infuriate those who see Trump as nothing more than a puppet of the Kremlin, moments ago NBC reported that Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil and late entrant into the SecState race after his first meeting with the president elect this past Tuesday at the Trump Tower, has been picked by Trump to serve as his next Secretary of State.

As NBC adds, Tillerson met Saturday with Trump at Trump Tower in New York, the president-elect’s spokesperson confirmed.  The selection of Tillerson comes after Trump and his transition team spent weeks searching for someone to fill the post of the top U.S. diplomat. Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani were reportedly in the running. Giuliani said Friday he had taken his name out of consideration.

The 64-year-old Texas oilman, whose friends describe as a staunch conservative, emerged as a Secretary of State contender only last week following a meeting with Trump, when it was speculated that he would consider the offer “due to his sense of patriotic duty and because he is set to retire from the company next year.” Tillerson’s appointment would introduce the potential for sticky conflicts of interest because of his financial stake in Exxon: he owns Exxon shares worth $151 million, according to recent securities filings.

A quick biographical sketch of Tillerson courtesy of the WSJ:

The son of a local Boy Scouts administrator, Tillerson was born in Wichita Falls, Texas. He attended the University of Texas, where he studied civil engineering, was a drummer in the Longhorn band and participated in a community service-oriented fraternity.

He joined Exxon in 1975 and has spent his entire career at the company.

For most of his adult life, he has also been closely involved with the Boy Scouts of America, even occasionally incorporating the Scout Law and Scout Oath into his speeches.  Mr. Tillerson played an instrumental role in leading the organization to change its policy to allow gay youth to participate in 2013, Mr. Hamre said. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates subsequently moved to lift the organization’s ban on gay adult leaders as Boy Scouts president in 2015.  “Most of the reason that organizations fail at change is pretty simple: People don’t understand why,” Mr. Tillerson said in a speech after the 2013 decision, urging leaders to communicate about the policy to help make it successful. “We’re going to serve kids and make the leaders of tomorrow.”

* * *

However it is not his Boy Scout exploits that will be the key talking point for pundits in the coming days, but rather his close relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

According to the WSJ, few U.S. citizens are closer to Mr. Putin than Mr. Tillerson,  a recipient of Russia’s Order of Friendship, bestowed by the president…

… who has known Putin since he represented Exxon’s interests in Russia during the regime of Boris Yeltsin.

“He has had more interactive time with Vladimir Putin than probably any other American with the exception of Henry Kissinger,” said John Hamre, a former deputy defense secretary during the Clinton administration and president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank where Mr. Tillerson is a board member.

Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson with Vladimir Putin, then Russia’s prime minister, at
a signing ceremony in the Black Sea resort of Sochi in August 2011.

In 2011, Mr. Tillerson struck a deal giving Exxon access to prized Arctic resources in Russia as well as allowing Russia’s state oil company, OAO Rosneft, to invest in Exxon concessions all over the world. The following year, the Kremlin bestowed the country’s Order of Friendship decoration on Mr. Tillerson.

The deal would have been transformative for Exxon. Mr. Putin at the time called it one of the most important involving Russia and the U.S., forecasting that the partnership could eventually spend $500 billion. But it was subsequently blocked by sanctions on Russia that the U.S. and its allies imposed two years ago after the country’s invasion of Crimea and conflicts with Ukraine.

Tillerson spoke against the sanctions at the company’s annual meeting in 2014. “We always encourage the people who are making those decisions to consider the very broad collateral damage of who are they really harming with sanctions,” he said.

As such, many have speculated that under his regime, the State Department may quietly drop any existing sactions against Russia.

* * *

Then there is the thorny issue of potential conflicts of interest, and his massive holdings of Exxon stock.

One of the first issues Tillerson would have to resolve as secretary of state would be his holdings of Exxon shares, many of which aren’t scheduled to vest for almost a decade. The value of those shares could go up if the sanctions on Russia were lifted.

The shares would likely have to be sold under State Department ethics rules, Chase Untermeyer, a former U.S. Ambassador to Qatar, said in an interview. “He could not erase his strong relationship with a particular country,” Mr. Untermeyer said. “The best protection from a conflict of interest is transparency.”

Tillerson will sell his $150+ million in XOM shares tax free, courtesy of the same tax break that was introduced in 1989 under the administration of President George H.W. Bush, which allowed Hank Paulson, Colin Powell and plenty of other public servants to dispose of their equity holdings without paying taxes: to get the tax relief, it must be deemed “reasonably necessary” for a public official to divest his shares, or a congressional committee must require the asset sale, according to section 1043 of the tax code, something which is virtually assured in the case of Tillerson.

* * *

Finally, the environmentalists will certainly be displeased with Trump’s choice, even thought Tillerson helped shift Exxon’s response to climate change when he took over as CEO in 2006. He embraced a carbon tax as the best potential policy solution and has said climate change is a global problem that warrants action. That was a break from his predecessor, Lee Raymond.

Still, Mr. Tillerson is a polarizing figure among Democrats and environmental activists. They have accused Exxon of sowing doubt about the impacts of climate change during Mr. Raymond’s tenure and say Mr. Tillerson hasn’t done enough to disclose the future impact of climate-change regulations on the company’s ability to get oil out of the ground.

This is certainly a good way to make clear exactly who’ll be running the government in a Trump administration—just cut out the middleman and hand it directly to the fossil-fuel industry,” said Bill McKibben, the environmental activist and founder of 350.org.

 

Exxon has disputed the criticism and accused activists and Democratic attorneys general of conspiring against the company.

 

The son of a local Boy Scouts administrator, Mr. Tillerson was born in Wichita Falls, Texas. He attended the University of Texas, where he studied civil engineering, was a drummer in the Longhorn band and participated in a community service-oriented fraternity.

 

As secretary of state, Tillerson would be fourth in line to the presidency.

No matter how US diplomacy plays out under Tillerson, however, one thing is certain: at least Mitt Romney will not be setting US foreign policy for the next four years. This particular ritual humiliation has now been duly completed…

Finally, as NBC also adds, Tillerson’s deputy secretary of state for day-to-day management of the department will be former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton.

To summarize: a cabinet run by Wall Street and big oil (with a neocon backstop), and a handful of veteran generals thrown in. The writing should be on the wall as to what comes next.

 

37
Leave a Reply

avatar
  Subscribe  
Notify of
Old Guy

Draining the swamp? This gets uglier every 24 hours.

Rise Up

Seems fine to me. Tillerson has worked with foreign governments all over the world as the head of the world’s largest energy company. He’ll look out for USA’s best business interests first, part of “Make America Great Again”. He’s also a devout Christian.

Steve

“To summarize: a cabinet run by Wall Street and big oil (with a neocon backstop), and a handful of veteran generals thrown in. The writing should be on the wall as to what comes next.”
Right, because HRC didn’t start anything in Egypt, Libia, and Syria. The current bigwigs aren’t saber rattling near Russia’s underbelly (like how we felt about nuke missles in Cuba,) and the NATO exercise doesn’t look like the last German invasion. Trump my not be perfect, but is much better than Hillary if you are averse to war.
BTW, Russia may be less averse than we are. They recently called back home all the family’s of their employees and conducted air raid drills where 30 million people were sheltered. Stop the current Saber rattling before you start complaining about Trump’s future Saber rattling.

kokoda the deplorable
kokoda the deplorable

Great choice.
Bill McKibben seems upset – tuff shit you fucking enviro-nazi. Why don’t you swallow some battery acid and make the world happy.

The writing IS on the wall: No war with Russia and the Globull Warming Hoax goes to the septic tank.

This is GLORIOUS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Generally, I am very, very pleased with choices made by the Trump Team.

Crat
Crat

My understanding is he was getting ready to retire. By getting this gig, he can sell all his stock invested in Exxon and have no tax liability!

Is this correct? Good to be an insider and have friends in high places.

Gayle

Do you guys think he was just playing along with Romney, kind of torturing him?

kokoda the deplorable
kokoda the deplorable

Gayle….I was waiting for someone with an inkling to that scenario.

Remember C. Christie – he was used early on and then spit out (for reasons I agree with).
Romney – same deal

Trump got cred, especially with Party Republican voters with the original moves with those guys.

starfcker
starfcker

Christie and Guiliani failed vetting. I have no details

Crat
Crat

Karl Denninger had an interesting piece about Trump’s picks so far. He was not impressed. I keep trying to discern his policy theme by the people he has chosen thus far. Maybe Trump is some master strategic thinker, but to me it just seems erratic.

TampaRed
TampaRed

Mitt is not nearly conservative for me.He is too much of a pragmatist.However,he is a good leader and administrator and would probably be loyal to whomever his boss is.He also has those sons who he would like to leave a good legacy for.I’d like to see Trump find a place for him.

ed_209

Mitt Romney is/was Bain capital scumbag selling out American jobs overseas. I know they tried to send our jobs over too , they met with Bain and Bain toured the place to see if it was feasable.

daddysteve
daddysteve

Not warmongering against Russia seems like going off the reservation a bit. He might still get himself bumped off.

ragman
ragman

The most important Trump actions/decisions are stopping immigration and Supreme Court Appointees. The res is just fluff. However, Mr. Tillerson , hopefully, is not inclined to antagonize Russia. Bolton, I just don’t know about.

ragman
ragman

The most important Trump actions/decisions are stopping immigration and Supreme Court Appointees. The rest is just fluff. However Mr. Tillerson, hopefully is not inclined to antagonize Russia. Bolton, I just don’t know about.

fear & loathing
fear & loathing

these picks do not come from donor class like odudos, nor are they neocons, bolton claims not to be one. nor are they party hacks like bushes. most may work w/o salary, screw the talking heads. like the cubs and now army winning, this could be a real change. hey the clintons may end up where they belong or worst, now they are the ones with the enemies.

Iska Waran
Iska Waran

To me, “draining the swamp” is less about business interests and cronyism than it is defanging the Deep State. It appears that there are elements within the FBI that are anti Clinton. It also appears that the top of the CIA and State Department are thoroughly corrupt, pro-globalist and behind Hillary. John Brennan was involved in cleaning up the passport records of Obama and his mother in State Department archives. Later he became our first Sunni CIA head. CIA + State + NATO under Admiral Stavridis were the entities arming Libyan and Syrian Sunni jihadis. There’s a lot of rot that has to be scraped out of State and the CIA, if possible. Things that need digging into: the murder of Michael Hastings, the murder of Seth Rich, the CIA pushing this bullshit story about the Russians tampering with out election, the CIA behind the “fake news” meme. Maybe we need someone from outside of government to clean house. I distrust Bolton, but if he’s subordinate, maybe he’ll be ok.

Rise Up

Don’t forget about Andrew Breitbart and Aaron Schwartz.

FaF
FaF

I’m ok with both choices. Obviously Trump – far more sophisticated thinker than he appears – is in a hurry to reconcile with Russia, because in order to relieve the pressure off America’s working class, he must confront trade-surplus countries as soon as possible. And since many of those (Germany, Japan, South Korea, Mexico) happen to be US “allies” who use US-Russia enmity as a leverage in negotiations, in order to make them more pliable, that leverage has to be removed.
Tillerson is great, Bolton is there to simply unnerve folks on the other side. Good cop -bad cop thing.

Dan
Dan

Hmmmm, so he’s in favor of the carbon credit scam and he helped defile the boy scouts…. not crazy about those. However, keeping us and Russia from making each other glow in the dark is probably an acceptable trade-off. Hopefully, having a lot of business sense helps him clean up the state dept., which is in serious need of housecleaning

James the Wanderer

“he helped defile the boy scouts…. not crazy about those. ”
Damnation eternal to those people who helped defile the Boy Scouts.
I think I’ll write an article on this one!

TPC
TPC

The revolving door continues, surprising precisely no one.

I’m thankful for a Trump presidency not because of any good he may do, but because he is an agent of change. A real one. Not that fake whiney crap Obama was peddling.

How anyone could believe this 4T will be anything but bloody is beyond me.

Trump was handed a golden opportunity to go down as one of the best leaders the world has ever seen, and instead he chooses mediocrity.

Don’t believe me? Just wait and see.

starfcker
starfcker

TPC,the revoling door is the other direction, government service to private payoff. The good thing about people with money is they are much harder to buy off. Mediocrity? I’ll take that bet. How about, competence?

Mark
Mark

What I get the most enjoyment out of is every time a private sector business successful person is chosen , it’s always unqualified.

You see, he made $150 million and rose through the ranks of a major corporation because he was a dim wit.

We are a divided country and there will be no bridging this gap.

Dixie
Dixie

Four or five times the Trump campaign asked for my opinions. I always responded with, “No more party hacks or lifelong professional politicos. Surround yourself with businessmen like yourself.” Maybe I was not the only one…

SSS

Wait a minute. NBC said Tillerson is “expected to be” named SecState. I think ZH jumped the gun on this one.

Stucky

I’ve held off commenting because I don’t know jack shit about this guy. Read a few things …. but spent a lot of time in the car yesterday, and of course, it’s being heavily discussed.

Therefore, I have a summary titled — “Everything you need to know about Rex Tillerson and why you should be happy that Trump chose him.”

OK, let’s get started.

===============================

Everything you need to know about Rex Tillerson and why you should be happy that Trump chose him.

The Lefties are going bat-shit crazy and hate him to pieces.

This is all you need to know.

The End.

Stucky

Here’s an article from Forbes. I’m copying and pasting because Forbes forces you to turn off ad-blocker. I did it, so you don’t have to.

=================================

8 Reasons Exxon’s Rex Tillerson Could Succeed As Secretary Of State

Rumors continue to percolate that President-elect Trump will nominate Rex Tillerson, the 64 year old CEO of ExxonMobil to be Secretary of State. Unlike recent top diplomats, Tillerson has no experience in government. The Exxon executive is neither a politician, a career public servant, a general or an academic . There are several reasons, however, why his unique experience would make him an unusually effective Secretary of State.

1.Negotiation: He is an experienced and accomplished negotiator. Historically, the secretary of state need not lead negotiations at the table, as Secretary Kerry appears to have done in the nuclear negotiations with Iran, but he must be in charge of the negotiations. Tillerson has experience running negotiations for everything from land-use rights to labor issues to transportation deals. Under his leadership, Exxon has negotiated with foreign and U.S. governments and major international conglomerates.

2.Management: As the chief executive of a $370 billion global company with operations in approximately 50 countries, Tillerson has experience managing a large operation. The scope and range of operations at Exxon is tremendous, including: oil exploration, construction, logistics, high technology research and development, marketing, sales, human resources, compliance and, of course, pumping oil. The Secretary of State runs an institution with a budget of $65.9 billion that operates in nearly every country in the world and includes a wide array of operations, including: visa services, services for Americans abroad, national security participation, trade promotion, diplomatic security and, of course, high level diplomacy. Compared to a politician, academic or diplomat, Tillerson clearly has the managerial experience.

3.World Leadership: Tillerson has diplomatic experience – representing Exxon instead of the United States . He knows world leaders and understands their motivations. Tillerson has had to address the concerns of foreign leaders, incentivize them to work with him. This mirrors U.S. needs: a top diplomat who realistically addresses the motivations of foreign leaders and convinces them to work with—not against—the U.S.

4. Private Sector Work Ethic: Tillerson joined Exxon in 1975, and was promoted for his accomplishment. Tillerson would not be satisfied to travel the world and pose for photo-opts. Exxon has been amongst the most profitable global companies because of its accomplishments. Tillerson could bring that drive for success to represent the U.S. around the world.

5.Conflicts of Interest: One of the loudest complaints about a Tillerson post in the State Department is that his ties to Exxon cannot be easily severed because he has equity and vesting options in the company. There are two problems with this argument: First, the U.S. regularly has private sector executives take major roles in other federal departments. For example, the Treasury Secretary has frequently come from Wall Street. Second, if private sector entanglement becomes a litmus test, the U.S. will not be able to benefit from private sector experience and talent.

6.Ties to Foreign Leaders: Some have argued that Tillerson, as a representative of Exxon, has built a relationship with Russia, receiving an award from Putin and opposing sanctions against that country. Many pundits view this association negatively, yet, at the same time, consider Iowa governor Terry Brandstad’s friendly ties to Chinese president Xi Jinping a positive component of his appointment as Ambassador to China. CNN said Brandstad was “uniquely well-suited because of his close relationship with Xi.” The main difference here is that Brandstad built his relationship with China a representative of Iowa while Tillerson built his relationship with Russia (and other countries) as a representative of Exxon. As Secretary of State, Tiller would instead represent the interests of the United States.

7.Energy and the Environment: Environmentalists would likely complain about an energy company executive taking a top role in government, but Tillerson can point to Exxon’s decade of leading work in alternative energy. In fact, Tillerson’s experience in the energy industry is a distinct advantage. For example, he knows how energy can be used to pressure China to adopt fair trade practices.

8.Loyalty: This should be the primary focus of the Senate confirmation process because Tillerson’s experience and skill is already well demonstrated. After over 40 years at Exxon, can Tillerson adjust to a new employer with new responsibilities and a new allegiance? President-elect Trump, his advisors and the Senate will make a determination on this. There is nothing in Tillerson’s history to suggest that he would be disloyal and in fact, he has run a company that has been a backbone of American economic growth for over 100 years.

Experience running the most successful publicly traded energy company is a useful background for leading the world’s most important diplomatic institution. Tillerson would likely follow a realist foreign policy – approaching the world as it is and making realistic movement towards what the United States hopes it can be. Peace, prosperity and American interests would become his new measures of profit and success.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenrwald/2016/12/10/8-reasons-exxons-rex-tillerson-could-succeed-as-secretary-of-state/#754b3aca6b24

starfcker
starfcker

Great stuff. Stucky. All about skill set

Montefrio

Reserving conclusions until after Mr T becomes president, but one reservation I do have is the perhaps paranoid suspicion that he may be the 21st century version of William McKinley. I’d love to have that suspicion dispelled, would love to see him make America great again by restoring her national monetary sovereignty, but I very much doubt he has any intention of doing the latter, and without it, the former will be half-baked at best: better than nothing, of course, but not the necessary foundation upon which all else must be built.

TrickleUpPolitics
TrickleUpPolitics

You guys sound worse than a pack of liberals predicting that Trump would never be president. One, give the guy a chance. Two, you are overlooking the synergy that his cabinet will create, and Three, you are discounting Trump’s standing with the public which is his leverage with both the Cabinet and Congress. This is going to be a very interesting four years and I for one look forward to watching it. I am rooting for Trump to succeed because if he succeeds we all succeed.

Big Dick
Big Dick

I think we need to look at the pattern. To make America Great Again we need people from outside Washington with heavy business experience. So far Trump has put these kind of people in positions, and melt them together in a team that know how to get a job done. Lets hope the coming crash drives the Demonrats into the ground and gives the government back to the working populace.

overthecliff
overthecliff

Most of these guys seem to be can do people. They are going to get a lot done. Good or bad? We’ll see.

James the Wanderer

I want DoEd – so I can shut it down, and transfer all remaining functions to the states.
NO ONE should be setting a national curriculum – let there be 50 curriculi, or more! The results will show which are successful, not a bureaucrat’s decision.
After that, he can name me head of the BATF – another excess bureaucracy that could be easily shut down with no loss.

Discover more from The Burning Platform

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading