The Wall Street Journal reports that President Trump signaled he may bar ExxonMobil from re-entering Venezuela after CEO Darren Woods opposed the President’s plans to get U.S. companies to invest in the nation’s oil projects:
“I’ll probably be inclined to keep Exxon out,” Trump said Sunday evening, speaking to reporters traveling with him aboard Air Force One.
During a meeting with oil-company executives at the White House on Friday, Exxon Chief Executive Darren Woods said that Venezuela is currently “uninvestable” without significant changes to the country’s commercial frameworks, legal system and hydrocarbon laws. He expressed confidence those changes could be put in place with the Trump administration and Venezuelan government working together.
“I didn’t like their response. They’re playing too cute,” Trump said Sunday of Woods’s comments, adding that other companies want to invest in Venezuela.
Exxon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump has been pushing U.S. energy companies to invest in Venezuela following the capture of the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro. But some companies have expressed concerns about entering the volatile country.
At the White House on Friday, Trump told the oil-industry executives that the U.S. would provide unspecified security guarantees to companies that go into Venezuela and invest in the country’s ailing energy infrastructure.
This is not the first time that Woods’s remarks have put him in hot water with President Trump. National Legal and Policy Center has warned for years that ExxonMobil’s strategy under Woods has too often chased government-subsidized climate schemes, favored by activists and politicians hostile to Exxon’s core business, at the expense of disciplined, risk-adjusted returns.
In November 2024 we sent a letter to ExxonMobil’s board calling for the removal of Woods as CEO and chair, citing his advocacy for keeping the United States in the Paris Agreement, even as President Trump sought withdrawal.
We’ve also repeatedly criticized ExxonMobil’s ongoing pursuits of carbon dioxide reduction gimmicks that are not economically feasible without taxpayer support, which we argued misaligned Exxon’s strategy with shareholder value and exposed the company to political risk.
In 2024, we filed a shareholder proposal asking the board to revisit executive pay incentives linked to greenhouse-gas reductions—warning that bonus structures tied to headline emissions metrics, without return-on-capital discipline, would push management to reduce oil and gas investment or reallocate to unprofitable carbon-capture and “low-carbon” projects dependent on temporary government favors.
In sum, NLPC continues to warn that Woods is out of touch with ExxonMobil shareholders’ best interests. His expressions of doubt about opportunity in Venezuela may be legitimate, but airing them in ways that draw the ire of the President is a bad look — especially when the CEOs of his competitors know how to carefully calibrate and express their views, and thus maintain their strong relationships with the No. 1 political figure who can influence their business globally.
“Woods thought he was speaking the truth — and he probably was — but he didn’t read the room,” said Andrew Logan, oil and gas senior director at the CERES climate advocacy nonprofit, to leftwing website RawStory. “He wasn’t in a position to say that without blowback, and blowback is what he got.”
Woods’s remarks are also incongruent with his frequent past advocacy for Exxon’s continued investment in carbon capture and storage projects, which he admits are not economically worthwhile unless the company can get subsidies. At least getting government help in Venezuela theoretically enables oil companies to access to a marketable product that is in high demand, whereas folly like carbon capture is built on flimsy climate science for a product that far fewer want.
(The original post was updated Wednesday morning, Jan. 14, with the quote from Andrew Logan to RawStory).
