Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power

In Private Empire, Steve Coll investigates the largest and most powerful private corporation in the United States, revealing the true extent of its power. ExxonMobil’s annual revenues surpass the economic activity of the great majority of countries. In many places where it conducts business, ExxonMobil’s sway over politics and security rivals that of the United States embassy. In Washington, ExxonMobil spends more money lobbying Congress and the White House than almost any other corporation. Yet despite its outsized influence, it is a black box. Private Empire pulls back the curtain, tracing the company’s recent history and its central role on the world stage, from the Exxon Valdez accident in 1989 to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. The narrative spans the globe, from Moscow to impoverished African capitals, Indonesia, and elsewhere, with scenes that feature kidnapping cases, civil wars, and high-stakes struggles at the Kremlin. At home, Coll goes inside ExxonMobil’s K Street office and its headquarters in Irving, Texas, where top executives in the “God Pod” oversee an extraordinary culture of discipline and secrecy. The story is driven by larger-than-life figures, including corporate legend Lee “Iron Ass” Raymond, ExxonMobil’s chief executive until 2005. A close ally of Dick Cheney, Raymond was one of the era’s most successful oil executives and a skeptic about climate change and government regulation. This position proved difficult to maintain in the face of new science and political change, and Raymond’s successor, Rex Tillerson, broke with Raymond’s programs in an effort to reset ExxonMobil’s public image. The larger cast includes world leaders, plutocrats, dictators, guerrillas, and corporate scientists who are part of ExxonMobil’s colossal story. The first hard-hitting examination of ExxonMobil, Private Empire is the masterful result of Coll’s indefatigable reporting. He draws on more than four hundred interviews; field reporting from Congress to the Niger Delta; more than one thousand pages of previously classified U.S. documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act; hitherto unexamined court records; and many other sources. A penetrating, news-breaking study, Private Empire is a defining portrait of ExxonMobil and the place of Big Oil in American politics and foreign policy. Winner of the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 2012.