Secretary of State Rex Tillerson Allegedly Used Email Alias As Exxon CEO (arstechnica.com)

According to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Rex Tillerson used an email alias of "Wayne Tracker" to communicate with other Exxon executives about climate change while serving as CEO of Exxon Mobil. "New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has been leading an investigation of Exxon Mobil centered on whether the company misled investors by publicly arguing against the reality of climate change even though its executives knew the science was accurate," reports Ars Technica. "The investigation was triggered by news reports describing climate research the company undertook in the 1970s and 1980s, which affirmed the work of other climate scientists and showed that greenhouse gas emissions were causing climate change. Exxon buried that work and spent the next couple decades claiming that the science was unclear, although it has recently publicly acknowledged reality." From the report: The e-mails that were provided allowed the attorney general to figure out that Tillerson used the account between 2008 and 2015 at least, but it didn't appear on Exxon's list of accounts for which records were preserved. The letter also mentions 34 other e-mail accounts "specifically assigned to top executives, board members, or assistants" that the attorney general thinks should have been included. In a statement, an Exxon spokesperson explained, "The e-mail address, Wayne.Tracker@exxonmobil.com, is part of the company's e-mail system and was put in place for secure and expedited communications between select senior company officials and the former chairman for a broad range of business-related topics." The Office of the Attorney General's letter claims that "Exxon has continuously delayed and obstructed the production of documents from its top executives and board members, which are crucial to OAG's investigation into Exxon's touted risk-management practices regarding climate change."

Comments

Exxon did nothing wrong ...

[Alain Williams]

it could not, a company is not animate. People do things on behalf of the company. Thus it is people who misled investors, etc.

The difference is important because all too often they will let the company/corporation pick up the blame for what they did and pay any fines. Until executives start losing their homes and pensions their behaviour will not change, we will continue to see scandals such as this. I am not talking about making executives paying for mistakes, even bad ones, but for deliberate lies/... such as this.

It's difficult for a man to understand something

[rsilvergun]

when his salary depends on him not understanding it.

None of this matters. I don't care about climate change. I care about whether I'm going to have a job and whether my kid's gonna have a job because in our civilization those who work eat and those who don't starve.

It's impossible to have a meaningful discussion on climate change without socialism. As long as we accept that it's OK to abandon over half the populace to abject poverty in the name of freedom we have to accept that those people will oppose anything that takes away what little they have in the short term even with the promise of the long term. Like Trump said, these people have nothing to lose.

$175 million payoff

[Anonymous Coward]

And tell me that Exxon's $175 million 'put into trust for Tillerson', isn't really a payoff to leverage his position in government.

I'm sure we should just turn a blind eye to this, except Exxon's major investments are in Siberian oil fields and so *it* has to be Putin's bitch, which means Tillerson has to be Putin's bitch too.

But hey, sell your country out for your own interests Tillerson.

Re:There's no law...

[Anonymous Coward]

So every company needs to officially warn their investors about global warming, rising tides, and ocean acidification? Because otherwise the investors will be unaware of these problems? Should they also have to warn them about the possibility of an asteroid strike? A global pandemic? A robot uprising?

Quite possibly, if they've invested significant amounts of the company's monies in those issues AND gotten results that show there is a concern.

You do realize that this is the sort of thing companies DO have to deal with, and Exxon's OWN actions indicate their liability.

I am a shareholder in a S&P index fund. So I should have received 500 warnings about global warming. I have received zero. Why isn't the NY AG going after the other 499?

I wouldn't know, perhaps many of those other 499 are being investigated. Wells Fargo, for example has taken a recent hit for some of its actions. And Merck got in BIG trouble for what they did with regards to VIOXX risks. So did Trump University. Volkswagen just got hit. And dozens more.

Whether or not you've gotten your required disclosures or not, I can't say, maybe you merely failed to access them yourself.

This is not about "failure to inform investors". It is about a liberal witchhunt against a company that defied their official dogma.

Defying dogma? Or deliberately concealing information, misleading the public, and otherwise behaving like criminals? Because all of your reaction doesn't seem to grasp what they actually did. You seem more aggrieved that once again, one of the corporations that are sitting on top of the world has had its dirty laundry revealed.

Disclaimer: I think global warming is real, and what Exxon did was reprehensible.

So you claim. Yet you're making excuses for them. This does not make you believable. It makes you less credible.

But expressing an opinion should not be a crime.

Really? Have you thought this over?

Consider the following:

Opinion: I like pie. I eat pie everyday. Yum.

Opinion: I believe this Pie is not poisonous. Have a bite.

Think about it again. Then think some more.