«Contrary to Darren's assurances to me, Exxon threw me under the bus at its earliest opportunity.«
https://finance.yahoo.com/energy/articles/shale-tycoon-claims-exxon-ceo-124336695.html
12 replies (most recent on top)
I also wish Scott had not exposed me to Exxon's notoriously cutthroat and dysfunctional culture. Could you imagine him on XOM's yes-man board? No wonder they tried to squash that as soon as they could.
BEST OF BOTH! lol
Pioneer had its faults, but it was still about a billion times better than working for “The Company”. And SS was an exponentially better at captaining the ship than DW. Granted they aren’t the same size ship, but he at least had the respect of his employees.
Will DW be held accountable for the reputation damage this is causing? Surely this will make it harder for us to negotiate deals in the future or be a partner of choice!
These are the “leaders” we work for. Doesn’t seem to match up with “The expectations of leaders” does it?
This tells all you want to know about XOM, especially those complaining about pip.
Wow. He is saying out loud what every non hipo employee is thinking. Amazing.
https://www.ft.com/content/ad6d56fa-6a6e-43bd-8f12-205a3f94ac0e?syn-25a6b1a6=1
Sheffield described Exxon as having a “notoriously cut-throat and dysfunctional culture”.
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https://www.ft.com/content/ad6d56fa-6a6e-43bd-8f12-205a3f94ac0e?syn-25a6b1a6=1
Exxon “broke the commitment Darren Woods made to me — and disregarded the will of Pioneer’s shareholders in the process,” writes Sheffield in his book.
“Now I understood why people had been telling me for more than 50 years that the two x’s in Exxon stood for the double cross company.”
Sheffield said an Exxon corporate officer told him in the summer of 2024 that senior company executives, including Woods, had orchestrated the scheme with the FTC. This followed a letter sent to the FTC by Chuck Schumer, the US Senate majority leader, and 22 of his Democrat colleagues urging it to block the deal.
“When the FTC couldn’t find legitimate grounds to stop the merger as Schumer and the other senators demanded, the commissioners, as the Exxon officer later told me, collaborated with Exxon.
“I am now convinced I was set up by both of them,” he said.
Sheffield contrasts Exxon’s approach with that of Chevron, which faced a similar order from the FTC over its plan to appoint John Hess to its board following its $53bn takeover of the US oil company Hess in 2025.
Sheffield said Chevron boss Mike Wirth phoned him to say how sorry he was that Exxon had mistreated him and asked for advice about the FTC’s attempt to block Hess from joining its board. Hess later joined Chevron’s board of directors.
Sheffield said he now had no desire to be part of Exxon’s board, which friends had described as a “patsy board”. In hindsight, he said he wished he had not exposed Pioneer employees to Exxon’s “notoriously cut-throat and dysfunctional culture” but instead pursued takeovers of other US oil companies such as Range Resources or Endeavour Energy Resources.
However, he said the merger was the right decision for shareholders because it generated a 19 per cent premium for them.
“This to me explains the difference in culture between the two CEOs of the two largest energy companies in the US. One was willing to welcome a new director to the board and support him against regulatory over-reach; the other was willing to roll over and do the government’s bidding,” he said.
How many of us feel this way as we approach the end of our careers at Exxon?
Despite his success, Sheffield blames Woods for casting a shadow over the end of his career by not defending him when the FTC's allegations came out. As angry as he was, Sheffield said his wife was apoplectic about it all.
"'All of a sudden, everybody in the room is Satan,'" he quotes her as saying in the book. "'That's how it felt by the end.'"
Considering the reputational impact these very public allegations will have on the company, shouldn’t some heads roll?
"Now I understood why people had been telling me for more than 50 years that the two X's in Exxon stood for the double-cross company," Sheffield wrote. "I am now convinced I was set up."
Maybe we can use this as a case study for next year’s ethics CBT.
Really disappointing but not surprising.
Wow
Such public animosity directed at one high-profile oil boss from another is extremely rare in the US shale patch, where rivalries abound but the industry generally tries to portray a unified front. Sheffield, however, said his wife likened his experience with Woods to the 1997 film The Devil's Advocate, a thriller about an ambitious lawyer who discovers his new boss is actually Satan.
"'Darren Woods came into my home, ate my food, drank my beer and lied to my husband's face,'" Sheffield quotes his wife as saying. "'It's hard to get over that.'"