Exxon vs. Activists: Battle Over Future of Oil and Gas Reaches Showdown
For years, Exxon Mobil Corp. didn’t have to pay much attention to investors because of its gargantuan profits. Yet on a Friday night in January, Exxon Chief Executive Darren Woods was defending the company during a video call to an investor owning about 0.02% of the oil giant’s stock.
Tech investor Chris James’s Engine No. 1 had launched an activist campaign against Exxon in December, calling the company a fossil-fuel dinosaur that lacked a coherent plan for surviving a global transition to cleaner energy sources. On the call, Charlie Penner, a hedge-fund veteran helping lead the Engine No. 1 campaign, pressed Mr. Woods to commit to steering Exxon to carbon neutrality, effectively bringing its emissions to zero—both from the company and its products—by 2050.
Mr. Woods refused, arguing that oil companies making such pledges had no real plans to achieve them. “They weren’t interested in having a conversation,” he said in a recent interview. “Frankly, they didn’t have a plan.”
Messrs. Woods, James and Penner failed to come to any agreement in what ended in a contentious exchange, people familiar with the matter said.
Since January, Engine No. 1’s bid for four seats on Exxon’s board has turned into one of the most expensive proxy fights ever. Exxon has spent at least $35 million, and Engine No. 1 has spent $30 million, regulatory filings show, in an increasingly pitched battle to persuade shareholders voting Wednesday at the company’s annual meeting.
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