When Steve Coll entitled his book “Private Empire”, he made his take on ExxonMobil clear. Throughout the book, features of ExxonMobil seem to mimic that of a small country. Among these are the company’s ability to make its own agreements with the leaders of countries, the formation of an internal culture, and their management of a large budget with the potential to change a region of the world where they invest. Considering this, it is difficult not to view ExxonMobil as a private empire. Coll did however left the ultimate decision to the reader, whether the company is doing good in the world or just another big business concerned with only their profit. As the most obvious evidence of ExxonMobil being a private empire, the company made arrangements with Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Chad the way that a government or military would, but without the formal inclusion of the United States. Lee Raymond, CEO of Exxon from 1993 and ExxonMobil until 2005, stated that governments …show more content…
In an average day, one million dollars of money runs through the metaphorical hands of ExxonMobil. With this amount of money spent in just one day, it is hard to deny the overwhelming size of their industry. In addition, this funding leads to an ability to influence the decisions of international leaders. When ExxonMobil began work in Equatorial Guinea, they whispered into the ear of Teodoro Obiang Nguema to improve his international reputation. Because not improving his reputation could lead to a termination of his partnership with ExxonMobil, listening meant that this president’s human rights behavior as well as his sharing of funds with non-family citizens slowly improved. This displayed one situation in which ExxonMobil was able to change, although not fully improve, the circumstances in an entire African