Happening today: It’s not too late to attend our second DD: Dialogues online event on Wednesday. Join FT columnist Simon Kuper at 15.30 BST/10:30 EST for a conversation with journalist David de Jong on his groundbreaking investigation of how the Nazis helped German tycoons make billions from the horrors of the Third Reich. Register for free here.

Revisiting Engine No. 1’s coup at ExxonMobil

One year ago, little-known activist hedge fund Engine No. 1 stormed the gates of ExxonMobil to agitate for four seats on the board of the conservative oil supermajor — and won three of them.

The unexpected victory was meant to herald a new era in climate activism. Wall Street surrendered willingly with net zero pledges hot off the press. Even the ruthless corporate raider Carl Icahn has embraced a greener future.

But these green-tinged tales of corporate climate triumphs have failed to hold up to the heat. And oil supermajors such as Exxon and Saudi Aramco are having the last laugh, at least for now.

Exxon’s share price is up almost 60 per cent over the past year, as the war in Ukraine exacerbates demand for oil and gas from outside Russia.

Amin Nasser, Saudi Aramco’s chief executive, told the FT’s Roula Khalaf at Davos this week that the global oil supply crunch emphasises the need to overhaul green energy transition plans and maintain investment in oil and gas production.

“The crisis is just indicating to us [that] you are running the whole world with not enough spare capacity,” he said.

Nasser has his reasons for declining to embrace the energy transition. The soaring oil price helped Saudi Aramco eclipse Apple this month as the world’s most valuable company.

Engine No. 1, most ironically, has also profited immensely from soaring oil prices. The fund disclosed it had bought a nearly $40mn stake in Exxon when it was trading at about $40 a share in late 2020. That share price has risen to more than $90, and regulatory filings show Engine No. 1 sold roughly half its holdings in the first quarter.

Chris James, the hedge fund’s founder, seems satisfied with the progress made at Exxon so far, despite the energy crisis threatening to derail transition efforts as governments push for accelerated oil and gas production.

“It’s really remarkable the amount of changes that have taken place at Exxon since we started the campaign,” he told the FT in an interview. “I’ve been impressed.”

Environmental campaigners are less than convinced, as our colleagues at Energy Source write.

With its growing cash pile, Exxon has more capacity to do M&A in addition to its $30bn stock buyback authorisation, giving it the financial firepower to further diversify into renewables.

A trash-talking crypto king crashes back to earth

Until a couple of weeks ago, 30-year-old Do Kwon was famous in the global crypto community for creating the terraUSD “algorithmic stablecoin”. But as one Seoul-based crypto industry insider told the FT, he’s now famous to the world over just for being an “arrogant p***k”.

A Stanford computer science graduate, the brash young Korean saw himself as pioneering the decentralisation of the global financial system, subsequently amassing a loyal following of online crypto bros who called themselves the “Lunatics”.

Kwon routinely derided critics for being “poor” and demanded the crypto world “bow before the king”. When asked by a Twitter user where he would get the $300mn he had indicated he would inject into his cryptocurrency’s reserves, his response was succinct: “Your mom obviously.”

Terra, which Kwon launched in 2020, was supposed to hold a steady value of $1. Its dollar peg was maintained by an algorithmic relationship with the luna cryptocurrency; to buy terra, users need luna, and vice versa.

Individual investors had been attracted by a scheme in which clients could lend their terra for a 20 per cent yield. Hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in Kwon’s Terraform Labs came from venture capital firms including Galaxy Digital, whose chief executive Mike Novogratz would later acquire a luna tattoo on his left shoulder.

DD wonders if he now regrets the ink. On May 9, terra slipped significantly past its $1 peg to 35 cents, undermining the ecosystem’s delicate algorithmic balance and breaking terra’s peg to the dollar. Luna’s supply was subsequently sold off, wiping $40bn off its value in a matter of days.

“Poor again,” Changpeng Zhao, founder of crypto exchange Binance, wrote on Twitter, alongside an article showing that the value of his exchange’s luna investment had plunged from $1.6bn to less than $2,500.

Hit especially hard were Kwon’s fellow South Koreans, 280,000 of who are estimated to have held luna when it tanked.

“Do Kwon was like a successful cult leader,” said Donghwan Kim of Blitz Labs, a Seoul-based crypto advisory firm. “But now he’s the most hated man in Korea.”

The billionaire bromance behind a (pending) $44bn takeover

Jack Dorsey has mixed business and friendship before. The former Twitter executive’s financial services company Square bought a majority stake in Jay Z’s streaming platform Tidal for nearly $300mn, to the surprise of many investors.

The tech billionaire is once again wielding his power in Silicon Valley to support a close comrade, albeit on a far larger scale, by backing Elon Musk’s $44bn offer for Twitter.

The synergies are more clear this time. Dorsey is poised for a payday worth nearly $1bn from his Twitter shares if the sale goes through at the agreed $54.20 per share price.

And although Musk has dabbled with the idea of attempting to lower the takeover price (DD’s James Fontanella-Khan and Sujeet Indap explain why that’s unlikely here), there could still be more in it for Dorsey than just money.

The pair’s alliance has fuelled speculation about whether Dorsey might play a crucial role in the company from the beginning if the deal closes.

Just one week after Dorsey said Twitter would be better off if taken private, Musk announced his plans to do just that.

While Dorsey recently declared he would never return to the company as chief executive, he has discussed with Musk whether he may continue to “hold equity of the surviving corporation or one or more of its affiliates following the merger”, according to recent filings.

The developments have unsettled many staff inside Twitter, three employees and former executives told the FT’s Hannah Murphy and Cristina Criddle. The filings revealed that the pair were closer than employees had originally realised, one person said.

Dorsey’s idea to take Twitter private in the first place stemmed from his past clashes with shareholders including Elliott Management, which hastened his exit as chief executive after complaining he had grown too preoccupied with his other executive role at Square.

Musk, who holds roles at all four of his companies, is likely to spark similar concerns.

Job moves

• SoftBank has appointed David Chao, a co-founder and general partner at venture capital firm DCM, as an external board director. He replaces Lip-Bu Tan, whose term will end next month, according to a filing.

• The chief executive of Petrobras has been fired after only weeks in the job, making him the third boss of the Brazilian state-controlled oil company to be dismissed by Jair Bolsonaro’s government in 15 months.

• Exor, the holding company controlled by Italy’s billionaire Agnelli family, has appointed General Atlantic vice-chair Ajay Banga as chair as a result of the decision by its board to separate the roles of chair and chief executive. John Elkann will continue as chief executive.

• Blackstone Credit has appointed Abby Miller as chief accounting officer and treasurer of the Blackstone Private Credit Fund and Blackstone Secured Lending Fund. She joins from BlackRock, where she was most recently chief financial officer and treasurer of its business development arm.

Smart reads

Crypto vs the establishment A bid by crypto platform FTX to let retail traders place leveraged bets on digital assets has turned a small federal agency into a regulatory battleground between the start-up and old-guard exchanges, Politico reports.

London calling Bankers of the Square Mile have held court over the City for centuries. An influx of US venture capital firms like Sequoia and General Catalyst are shifting the balance of power into private markets, Bloomberg reports.

Loopholes abound Pulling the plug on London’s laundromat isn’t as simple as it may appear. UK lawmakers’ “ban on services exports to Russia” leaves plenty of grey areas for professional services firms with business in the country, the FT’s Cat Rutter Pooley writes.

News round-up

Glencore to plead guilty to bribery charges and pay $1.5bn penalty (FT)

Blank-cheque companies restate accounts after US watchdog’s warnings (FT)

Police search McKinsey’s Paris office in tax fraud probe (Reuters)

KPMG fined over Rolls-Royce audit (FT)

Oracle to win unconditional EU nod for $28.3 bln Cerner deal (Reuters)

Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich’s offshore wealth Is focus of new probe (Wall Street Journal)

JPMorgan warns overseas digital bank losses could top $1bn after UK push (FT)

Airbnb gives up on China as zero-Covid policy crushes tourism (FT + Lex)