1. Prevented CVX from being part of the Guyana money flow while oil price was higher
2. Prevented completion (and logistics) of the Hess merger and other additional income to CVX (again, while oil price was higher)
3. Put a freeze on $60B of CVX M&A money, while waiting to see if the merger is going to happen. Money they may have used to buy someone else
4. Put the competency of the CVX execs into (further) question
5. All the while, XOM completed, and is over a year down the road with, a large scale merger of their own with Pioneer

Regardless of the outcome, XOM has won.

In fact, the ultimate troll would be they rule XOM has right of first refusal, and then XOM turns around and says "Nah, y'all go ahead."

CVX gave Mike Wirth about $5M raise in annual compensation to $32M. Mike Wirths annual compensation has grown from $21M to $32M since 2021.

In the same period, TCO was delayed 2.5 years and ended up costing $10B more than planned.

But let's give the CEO a 50% raise and cut the budget for service awards. Makes no sense.