NEW YORK — President-elect Donald Trump is zeroing in on ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as his secretary of State nominee.
Tillerson had his second interview with the president-elect Saturday at Trump Tower and has emerged as the favorite in the long-running competition to lead the State Department, a person familiar with the transition deliberations told USA TODAY on condition of anonymity because Trump has yet to announce his pick.
The 64-year-old Tillerson runs the world's sixth largest company, one with global connections — including some with Russian President Vladimir Putin. News of Tillerson's emergence came as government officials accuse the Russian government of seeking to intervene in the recent U.S. election, including hacks of Democratic officials' e-mails — all in an effort to boost Trump's chances.
Putin and Russia have denied the allegations, while Trump has questioned the idea of Russian interference.
And with Trump promising to cancel the Paris climate agreement negotiated by President Obama, the nomination of an oil executive would send a powerful signal that the United States is prepared to buck the global consensus on greenhouse gas emissions.
Trump's weeks-long search for secretary of State has included multiple interviews with 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, former New York City and top adviser Rudy Giuliani, Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker, and retired general and ex-CIA director David Petraeus.
Giuliani, who said Friday he was withdrawing from the State Department competition, accompanied Trump to the Army-Navy game Saturday.
After Trump aides said the list had been narrowed to those four, the president-elect decided to expand his list — a decision that brought his attention to Tillerson.
Trump transition adviser Kellyanne Conway told MSNBC that Tillerson is a "very intriguing pick to many people. He's already active in Russia, and China and Yemen and the developing world, across our globe. He has the kind of business experience that Donald Trump values."
Tillerson has worked for Exxon since graduating from college with an engineering degree in 1975, climbing the ranks until he was named CEO in 2006. He has no previous governmental or diplomatic experience.
But as CEO of ExxonMobil, Tillerson has negotiated with countries all over the world for oil exploration rights, particularly in the Middle East and Russia.
Of particular interest in his Senate confirmation hearings would be the $2.2 billion Exxon investment in Russian oil exploration in the Arctic Ocean, which Tillerson negotiated in 2011. That agreement, which also allowed Russian investment in other Exxon ventures around the world, was eventually scuttled after U.S.-imposed sanctions following Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
Tillerson has also maintained a personal relationship with Putin. Tillerson’s own bio on the Exxon website boasts that the Russian leader awarded him the Order of Friendship in 2013.
At Exxon, Tillerson has been critical of international sanctions, saying they’re difficult to impose fairly. He has acknowledged that climate change has been caused by human activity, and has endorsed a carbon tax as “the most efficient means of reflecting the cost of carbon in all economic decisions.”
But environmental groups are expected to oppose his Senate confirmation if he's nominated. The New York Attorney General is investigating whether ExxonMobil lied to investors and consumers about the risks of climate change from burning fossil fuels.
“In this position, Tillerson will try his hardest to silence global initiatives and the right of state attorney generals to hold fossil fuel companies legally accountable for climate change," said Annie Leonard, executive director of Greenpeace USA.
The secretary of State is also responsible for advancing U.S. policy on human rights. Tillerson, himself an Eagle Scout, was president of the Boy Scouts of America at the time when it began allowing gay scouts, and in 2015 ExxonMobil changed its anti-discrimination policy to include gays and lesbians. But the Human Rights Campaign remains skeptical of the company's policy, saying it was prompted by Obama's 2014 executive order targeting federal contractors, not a change in corporate values.
