A White House statement Monday showering Exxon Mobil with praise for investing $20 billion in the Gulf Coast and planning to create 45,000 jobs was widely mocked for seemingly lifting a passage from Exxon Mobil’s own release.
That’s called coordinating a message and staying on it.
The effusive statement, President Donald Trump’s five subsequent tweets calling attention to it, and his one-minute video touting the Irving, Texas-based oil company raise bigger questions, not least because Exxon is the only company to land an official and exclusive White House statement since the president’s inauguration (check for yourself here). Among the questions: How does a company pursue the worldwide public relations boost that overwhelmingly positive attention from a mercurial president can provide?
And moreover, why is the president so focused on large, profitable corporations who may not need the assist? Exxon, for example, ranks sixth in Fortune’s Global 500 list, and it generated $226 billion in total revenue with $7.8 billion in earnings in 2016.
Exxon’s Alan Jeffers explained his company’s pursuit of White House involvement in an email to Independent Journal Review:
“We provided information about our announcement to the White House on a number of occasions both in person and through email and they decided they wanted to issue a congratulatory press release. We’ve done the same thing with previous administrations over the years when making a major announcement as do most large U.S. companies. It’s a common practice to provide details, including quotes from our management to enable development of such a press release.”
No question that many companies request attention from the White House. Many of those requests are never granted.
And yet, Jeffers later clarified: “I didn’t say we made an ask. I said we provided information.” He added that Exxon’s point person on the press push was Theresa Fariello, an Exxon lobbyist of 16 years who runs the company’s Washington office.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders explained to Independent Journal Review that the administration worked closely with Exxon on coordinating the push after the company apparently decided to keep the Gulf program going and reinvest through 2022. She contested that the company could have ended the program, but they’re doubling down on it due to the economic conditions in play following Trump’s election.
“They wanted to work with us on that, in large part because they have a lot more confidence in the economy and the business sector right now under President Trump,” Sanders said.
She said there’s no criteria a company has to meet other than creating jobs to get the administration’s attention for such a public boost, but explained:
“If somebody’s creating two jobs, are we going to do like a massive thing? Probably not. But any time there’s a company that’s willing to invest in the marketplace here and create jobs at a large level, then that’s certainly something we want to highlight, particularly if it’s something that we had a hand in and we got to help do in some capacity — whether it’s just creating a better business environment, which is a large part of the Exxon sentiment — there’s a much better environment and they have confidence in the market.”
The example is a telling one. As Trump put it himself in a video thanking the company: “Special company; special people.”
He certainly believes that, as he has showered that kind of praise on Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the former Exxon CEO, who talks to the president frequently. Two State Department officials have said Tillerson wouldn’t have known about the effort to spotlight his former company.
Acting spokesman Mark Toner told reporters this week that as Tillerson “made clear in his testimony to Congress, he’s committed to federal ethics rules, and he’s continuing to carry out and meet the terms of this agreement,” including a divestiture from Exxon that he has until May 2 to complete.
The appearance still is complicated for the administration in part because the White House issued the statement about an hour after Tillerson finished an Oval Office meeting with Trump, drawing additional criticism.
“Trump’s heavy promotions of Exxon Mobil over so many incredible businesses across the country is yet another potential conflict of interest, considering his Secretary of State used to run it and may continue to hold millions of dollars of stock in it,” said Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez in a statement to IJR. “Trump promised to drain the swamp, but instead he is adding more alligators.”
Other than Exxon, the companies that since the election have enjoyed Trump’s Twitter praise for their efforts at job creation include:
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Samsung, based in South Korea, ranking 13th on the Global 500
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Bayer, based in Germany, ranking 165th on the Global 500
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Masa (Softbank), based in Japan, ranking 92nd on the Global 500
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Intel, ranking 158th on the Global 500
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Boeing, ranking 61st on the Global 500
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Walmart, ranking first on the Global 500
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General Motors, ranking 20th on the Global 500
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Ford, ranking 21st on the Global 500
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Fiat Chrysler, based in Europe, unranked on the Global 500
He’s taken a special interest in car companies, threatening a border tax on the likes of GM and Toyota for plans to move manufacturing plants to Mexico. And he’s posted photos of his meetings with auto executives.
Ford has gotten positive attention for keeping jobs in the United States, but Trump has not piped up on GM’s plans this week to lay off 1,100 workers or Boeing’s announcement that it would lay off 1,800 workers. Trump also criticized the manufacturing company Rexnord for moving to Mexico.
Democrats say if he’s taking credit for the economic environment, he should pay attention to some of these announcements, as well.
In the interest of completeness and separate from the media organizations Trump regularly lambasts, he threatened to kill a Lockheed Martin contract if that company didn’t lower its cost for a government contract but lavished praise on the company after it agreed to working with him. After pushing through the first travel ban, he blamed Delta for computer outages that caused delays at U.S. airports rather than questions relating to the executive order.
It’s also notable that he also criticized Nordstrom for ditching his daughter Ivanka Trump’s clothing line after promoting L.L.Bean for its CEO’s support of his policies. And he’s given brief shoutouts to Aetna and Humana for panning Obamacare.
Source:ijr.com