(Bloomberg) -- US President Joe Biden took the CEO of America’s biggest oil company to task for using record profits to reward investors instead of cutting fuel prices.
“Can’t believe I have to say this but giving profits to shareholders is not the same as bringing prices down for American families,” Biden said in a tweet Friday while Exxon Mobil Corp (NYSE:XOM). Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods was addressing Wall Street analysts in a conference call.
The president was reacting to remarks prepared for Woods on the call just hours after the oil giant posted almost $20 billion in quarterly earnings -- an all-time high for Exxon -- as well as plans to increase dividends by almost $500 million on an annual basis.
“There has been discussion in the U.S. about our industry returning some of our profits directly to the American people,” Woods said in the remarks published ahead of the call. “That’s exactly what we’re doing in the form of our quarterly dividend.”
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