Pioneer Natural Resources founder Scott Sheffield alleges ExxonMobil collaborated with the Federal Trade Commission in a "smear campaign" to keep him off the company's board following its $60B takeover of his company in 2024. In his new autobiography, From Tehran to the Permian, to be released in early October, Sheffield wrote, "I do firmly believe that Exxon schemed against me," and said Exxon "threw me under the bus at its earliest opportunity," referring to Exxon CEO Darren Woods. The FTC barred Sheffield from joining Exxon's board as a condition of its approval for the Pioneer deal, its largest takeover since the company merged with Mobil in 1999, following an antitrust investigation in which the FTC alleged Sheffield colluded with OPEC to push up oil prices. As part of the merger approval by the Biden administration, Exxon signed an FTC consent decree prohibiting it from appointing Sheffield to its board, and the company said at the time that the commission's allegations against Sheffield were "entirely inconsistent with how we do business." Sheffield was cleared of any wrongdoing last year by a Republican-led FTC, but said his health suffered for several "excruciating" months during the investigation, and while he said the merger was the right decision for shareholders because it generated a 19% premium for them, he wished he had not exposed Pioneer employees to Exxon's "notoriously cut-throat and dysfunctional culture."
Exxon Mobil CorpExxon is accused of collaborating with the FTC's antitrust probe that barred Sheffield from its board after the $60B Pioneer deal, a regulatory/legal matter with no clear financial direction.
