CNBC anchor Sara Eisen was creeped out social media this week for her on-air comments asking whether US President Donald Trump’s threat to destroy Iranian civilization was good for investors.
Like the US-Israeli war against Iran and the closing of the Strait of Hormuz by the Iranian military – through which about 20% of the world oil has been sent – fueled volatility in global markets, Trump issued an ultimatum THE Tehran: Reach an agreement to reopen the vital waterway by Tuesday night or “an entire civilization will die tonight, never to return.”
While much of the world recoiled in horror from Trump’s threat, Eisen, who co-hosts the cable business news network’s “Squawk on the Street,” took a different view.
“This deadline that President Trump has set, 8 p.m., has threatened to destroy a civilization.” she said Tuesday. “How does an investor process that? Is it more upside risk or downside risk?”
Reactions ranged from disbelief to anger.
Journalist and writer Charlie Warzel called Eisen’s words a “glorious time capsule of this fractured moment in which we find ourselves.”
David Sirota – whose satirical comedy was nominated for a 2021 Oscar Don’t look up squeeze vapid TV hosts who filter the existential threat of an impending comet impacting Earth through a profit-oriented lens – asked, “What stage of corporate media is this?”
Eisen’s comments are part of a social landscape in which the price of a gallon of gasoline is a bigger concern for the Americans than the US-Israeli SLAUGHTER by hundreds of Iranians the children.
Big oil executives get paid
Many tidings AND ANALYSIS articles extolled Iran’s war-winning potential. So have some Republican politicians.
“When this regime falls, we will have a new Middle East,” said the US senator. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said Fox News last month. “We’re going to make a lot of money.”
Big Oil – which invested $445 million in the election of Trump and others The Republicans in 2024 – and fossil fuel executives are doing just that.
after spill money in President Donald Trump’s successful campaign to recover The White HouseUS the fossil fuel industry executives cashed in on his and Israel’s war against Iran with record stock sales, according to a VerityData analysis. reported in Wednesday from The Wall Street Diary.
“Most of the sales for the first quarter began before the U.S. and Israel began bombing Iran on February 28,” and some “were set in motion under plans that allow executives to automatically sell shares at certain times or share prices without making decisions at the time that could leave them open to accusations of improper trading,” the paper acknowledged.
However, as stock prices for the industry skyrocketed, executives at ChevronConocoPhillips, Diamondback Energy, and others oil and gas companies collectively sold $1.4 billion in shares.
“At nearly a dozen companies, the number of executives who sold in the quarter hit or exceeded 10-year records and in some cases set all-time records,” the Journal detailed. “Sales hit a 15-year high, with nearly six executives selling for every one that bought shares in the first quarter — well over double the usual ratio.”
“CEOs stood out as big sellers on multiple occasions,” the paper noted, noting that “Chevron CEO Mike Wirth sold about $104 million in stock between January and March. ConocoPhillips’ Ryan Lance made about $54.3 million in stock sales in March alone. Lorenzo Simonelli sold $3 shares of the oilfield CEO that same month.”
VerityData’s head of research, Ben Silverman, said that “it speaks to the opportunistic behavior of everyone involved — it could be opportunistic decided months ago, it could be opportunistic in the moment.” He added: “There was a gasp in sales and the message they sent was cash now because the ride won’t last forever.”
In her newsletter Heated, climate journalist Emily Atkin pointed out that “this is not the first time that a small group of extremely wealthy oil CEOs used a war to get richer. In the weeks after Pres. Joe Biden said he wasconvincedRussia would invade Ukraine in 2022, Big Oil CEOs sold almost $99 million worth of stock, according to one ANALYSIS BY Friends of the Earth AND BailoutWatch.”
According to Atkin:
What really makes this story remarkable is not simply that oil executives got rich from a war. It’s how perfectly legal and normal everything is, and what that legality reveals about who wins and who loses when America goes to war.
When America goes to war, the costs are spread widely, over every American who drives a car or heats a house. The benefits are narrowly distributed, flowing to a small group of men whose compensation is designed to capture just this kind of windfall.
And the windfall these oil tycoons make from the war won’t go primarily to yachts and private jets (they already have those). It will go to political campaigns and lobbying organizations dedicated to fighting climate regulation, blocking clean energy policy, and promoting authoritarianism.
The paper’s reporting came as Trump and Iran agreed to a fragile two-week ceasefire negotiated by Pakistan late Tuesday. While Israel is supposedly on board, he escalated attacks on Lebanon on Wednesday.
While a Pakistani official reiterated publicly that Lebanon is still part of the deal and Iran threatened to withdraw entirely, Janet Abou-Elias, a scholar with the Democratizing Foreign Policy program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. said Common dreams that Israel’s attack “looked like a direct attempt to blow up the ceasefire and it worked.”
Meanwhile, even though oil prices fell after the ceasefire was announced, “‘fossil life‘-or inflation caused by volatility and rising oil and gas prices – is still likely to continue,” the global climate group 350.org warned on Wednesday.
“Even if the Strait of Hormuz is reopened and the ceasefire held, oil and gas prices will remain above pre-war levels and consumers will pay.” said Andreas Sieber, head of political strategy at 350.org. “Volatility remains high and supply will remain tight due to infrastructure damage and inventory rebuilding.”
GROUP said Last week that war-related increases in oil and gas prices “have already cost consumers and businesses an additional $104.2-111.6 billion” globally, and an analysis by Democratic members of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress found that Americans spent An additional $8.4 billion at the gas pump during the first month of Trump’s war.
Throughout the conflict, 350.org and other green groups have advocated a windfall tax targeting oil and gas giants, as well as renewed calls for a swift and just international transition away from climate devastation fossil fuels.
