Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. Chief Executive Chris Nassetta worked from home in Arlington, Va., with his wife, six daughters and two dogs for two weeks before returning to the hotel chain’s nearly empty headquarters for the rest of the past year. Sharmistha Dubey has been leading Match Group Inc. from her dining room table near Dallas. Herman Miller ’s Andi Owen has her dog Finn to keep her company while working from her home office in Grand Rapids, Mich. Moderna Inc. CEO Stéphane Bancel relishes twice-daily 30-minute walks between his home in Boston and the vaccine maker’s Cambridge offices, where he resumed working in August, so he can crystallize his priorities and reflect on the day. The Wall Street Journal photographed them and 11 other business leaders in their pandemic office spaces as they discussed the past year and what’s to come.
More than a year after the coronavirus upended the way we work, the business leaders said they have found that more communication, flexibility and transparency have been crucial in staying connected to their employees.
Heads of companies across sectors including finance, hospitality and technology spoke from their current workspaces about what they’ve learned from the largely remote year, what challenges they faced and what changes they plan to leave in place during the next phase of work.
Brad Karp, chairman of the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, predicted his schedule will remain less hectic after the pandemic is over: “Personally, I can’t see myself reflexively flying cross-country for an hour-long presentation or meeting.”
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks about his $2 trillion infrastructure plan during an event to tout the plan at Carpenters Pittsburgh Training Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, March 31, 2021.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
Micron
“This is clearly important because the semiconductors form the backbone of everything today in the economies,” Micron’s Mehrotra said. “We are really a leader in memory and storage, the only U.S. company. We are definitely excited about the prospects of driving greater leadership in research, technology and products through the U.S., as well as on a worldwide basis.”
Micron is a major player in the market of dynamic random-access memory, or DRAM, and flash memory.
With demand for electronic consumer products rising, a semiconductor shortage has been a boon for the chipmaking industry, but a negative for their end markets, particularly in autos. The White House infrastructure plan would commit money to semiconductor manufacturing and research in the U.S.
QuantumScape
QuantumScape’s Singh welcomed Biden’s pledge to invest in electric vehicles, noting that more focus is needed addressing key hurdles that keep electric vehicles from being competitive with traditional combustion engines. Those hurdles include long-range travel, battery charging times and lower costs, he said.
“It’s very exciting. … It’s great that the administration is so supportive of this electrified transition that is critical to regress emissions, but our view is that at the end of the day, you know, government policy is not enough,” Singh told Jim Cramer.
“You’ve got to have a product that people want to buy, and we think that people are going to want to buy more EVs once they’re more competitive with combustion engines. That’s really the promise of what we’re doing.”
Hyzon Motors
Hyzon Motors is a private hydrogen-fuel cell company that’s based in Honeoye Falls, New York. The company, which is being acquired by a blank-check firm called Decarbonization Plus Acquisition Corp in a deal worth $3.9 billion, does business in the commercial vehicle market, including heavy-duty trucks and buses.
Knight — who heads and co-founded the company, said hydrogen-powered trucks don’t get enough recognition — adding that the power source is more suitable for long-range driving.
“Hydrogen trucks are electric trucks. They are fuel cell electric trucks,” he said. “We see great potential for those kind of back-to-base operations with high utilization to move toward hydrogen.”
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Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee are expected to press Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey about their platforms’ efforts to stem baseless election fraud claims and vaccine skepticism. Opaque algorithms that prioritize user engagement and promote misinformation could also come under scrutiny, a committee memo has hinted.
The tech platforms, which had already faced intense pressure to beat back misinformation and foreign interference leading up to the 2020 election, came under greater scrutiny in the following months. Even as some of the companies rolled out new steps to crack down on election conspiracy theories, it wasn’t enough to keep hardline supporters of President Donald Trump from storming the US Capitol.
The hearing also marks the CEOs’ first time back before Congress since Trump was banned or suspended from their respective platforms following the Capitol riots. In their prepared remarks, some of the executives address the events of Jan. 6 head on.
“The Capitol attack was a horrific assault on our values and our democracy, and Facebook is committed to assisting law enforcement in bringing the insurrectionists to justice,” Zuckerberg’s testimony reads. But Zuckerberg also adds, “we do more to address misinformation than any other company.”
The hearings coincide with legislation under active consideration in both the House and Senate to rein in the tech industry. Some bills target companies’ economic dominance and alleged anti-competitive practices. Others zero in on the platforms’ approach to content moderation or data privacy. The various proposals could introduce tough new requirements for tech platforms, or expose them to greater legal liability in ways that may reshape the industry.
For the executives in the hotseat, Thursday’s session may also be their last chance to make a case personally to lawmakers before Congress embarks on potentially sweeping changes to federal law.
At the heart of the coming policy battle is Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934, the signature liability shield that grants websites legal immunity for much of the content posted by their users. Members of both parties have called for updates to the law, which has been interpreted broadly by the courts and is credited with the development of the open internet.
The CEOs’ written testimony ahead of the high-profile hearing Thursday sketches out areas of potential common ground with lawmakers and hints at areas where the companies intend to work with Congress — and areas where Big Tech is likely to push back.
Zuckerberg plans to argue for narrowing the scope of Section 230. In his written remarks, Zuckerberg says Facebook favors a form of conditional liability, where online platforms could be sued over user content if the companies fail to adhere to certain best practices established by an independent third party.
The other two CEOs don’t wade into the Section 230 debate or discuss the role of government in as much granularity. But they do offer their general visions for content moderation. Pichai’s testimony calls for clearer content policies and giving users a way to appeal content decisions. Dorsey’s testimony reiterates his calls for more user-led content moderation and the creation of better settings and tools that let users customize their online experience.
By now, the CEOs have had a great deal of experience testifying before Congress. Zuckerberg and Dorsey most recently appeared before the Senate in November on content moderation. And before that, Zuckerberg and Pichai testified in the House last summer on antitrust issues.
In the days leading up to Thursday’s hearing, the companies have argued they acted aggressively to beat back misinformation. Facebook on Monday said it removed 1.3 billion fake accounts last fall and that it now has more than 35,000 people working on content moderation. Twitter said this month it would begin applying warning labels to misinformation about the coronavirus vaccine, and it said repeat violations of its Covid-19 policies could lead to permanent bans. YouTube said this month it has removed tens of thousands of videos containing Covid vaccine misinformation, and in January, following the Capitol riots, it announced it would restrict channels that share false claims doubting the 2020 election’s outcome.
But those claims of progress aren’t likely to appease committee members, whose memo cited several research papers indicating that misinformation and extremism are still rampant on the platforms.
New York state Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaks at a news conference on September 08, 2020 in New York City.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
A group of 250 CEOs and business leaders sent a letter to New York’s governor and legislators expressing “alarm” at what they say could become the largest spending and tax increase in the state’s history.
The letter, delivered to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Democratic members of the state Assembly and Senate, urged politicians to postpone any tax increases until after the state and New York City have more fully recovered from the pandemic and workers return. As employers of over 1.5 million people, the executives said many of their workers have moved out of the city and if taxes increase “they will vote with their feet.”
“Only about 10% of our colleagues are in the office and prospects for the future of a dense urban workplace are uncertain,” the letter said. “Many members of our workforce have resettled their families in other locations, generally with far lower taxes than New York, and the proposed tax increases will make it harder to get them to return.”
Signers of the letters include JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, BlackRock Inc. Chairman and CEO Larry Fink, Pfizer Chairman and CEO Albert Bourla, Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser and JetBlue CEO Robin Hayes. The group said “significant corporate and individual tax increases will make it far more difficult to restart the economic engine and reassemble the deep and diverse talent pool that makes New York the greatest city in the world.”
“This is not about companies threatening to leave the state; this is simply about our people voting with their feet,” the letter said. “Ultimately, these new taxes may trigger a major loss of economic activity and revenues as companies are pressured to relocate operations to where the talent wants to live and work. This is what happened to New York during the 1970s, when we lost half our Fortune 500 companies, and it took thirty years to recover. “
Gov. Cuomo’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Democratic members of the state Assembly and Senate have proposed a series of tax increases on companies and high earners that could top $6 billion a year. They say the pandemic increased inequality in New York and higher taxes on companies and high earners are needed to fund social programs and reduce the wealth gap.
Yet New York’s budget picture has improved recently. The state is set to receive $12.5 billion in unrestricted funds from the federal stimulus bill and New York State Director Robert Mujica said the stimulus funds and stronger-than-expected tax revenues would allow the state to avoid planned budget cuts.
The group said it understands the “urgent human needs” and inequities exposed by the pandemic but that proposed tax increases or changes in policy should come after New York’s recovery.
“Once we are on a path toward restoring more than one million jobs and thousands of small businesses that New York has lost in the past twelve months, there may well be need to raise new revenues to fill the gaps in our education, health and social welfare systems,” the letter stated.
Rebecca Bailin, Campaign Manager for Invest in Our New York, an effort to fund social programs by taxing the wealthy, said the letter was “250 wealthy people in their homes pleading for status quo.”
Players central to the GameStop market bonanza will call on Congress to shorten the time required for stock trades to settle, according to testimonies released ahead of their appearances at a Congressional hearing on Thursday.
Why it matters: A typically obscure part of stock trading is set to be among the issues at the forefront — as Robinhood and others look to deflect the anger that stemmed from the Reddit-fueled stock frenzy.
What they’re saying: Billionaire Ken Griffinwill testify that there should only be one day between when a trade is executed and when it is settled — rather than the two business days it currently takes.
Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev will go further, calling for trades to be settled in real-time.
This would have allowed the company “to better react to periods of increased volatility in the markets without restricting the purchasing of securities,” Tenev will claim to lawmakers.
Flashback: Tenev has said the sharp jump in the amount of cash required to post while the trades settled caused it to curb trading on its platform — a move that sparked anger from users and lawmakers.
Griffin, who owns Citadel Securities, will also defend the firm’s outsized role in carrying out the stock market trades made on Robinhood’s platform and elsewhere.
“When others were unable or unwilling to handle the heavy volumes, Citadel Securities stepped up,” Griffin will say.
He will note the company executed 7.4 billion shares at the height of the trading mania on behalf of retail investors in one day — more than the average daily volume for the entire equities market in 2019.
Of note:Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, who’s also set to testify, will defend r/WallStreetBets — the community that served as ground-zero for “meme stock” posts.
Huffman says group activity “was well within normal parameters,” and the group was not infiltrated by bots, foreign agents or bad actors.
Reddit trader Keith Gill will tell Congress the idea he used social media to “promote GameStop stock to unwitting investors is preposterous.”
Gabe Plotkin, CEO of Melvin Capital — a hedge fund targeted on r/WallStreetBets for its short position in GameStop — will say he was “personally humbled” by the efforts that drove up the stock price, while emphasizing the antisemitic language directed toward him.
Per his testimony, Melvin closed out its GameStop short after six years last month. It received a cash infusion from Griffin-led hedge fund Citadel (and Point72) after suffering heavy losses.
Jennifer Schulp, a former official at financial regulator FINRA, will testify that the wild trading “did not present a systemic risk to the functioning of our markets.”
Schulp, who’s currently with the Cato Institute, will also say that regulatory changes in response to the episode are likely unnecessary “in light of the minimal impact on the market’s function.”
spoke about combining the oil giants after the pandemic shook the world last year, according to people familiar with the talks, testing the waters for what could be one of the largest corporate mergers ever.
Chevron Chief Executive
Mike Wirth
and Exxon CEO
Darren Woods
discussed a merger following the outbreak of the new coronavirus, which decimated oil and gas demand and put enormous financial strain on both companies, the people said. The discussions were described as preliminary and aren’t ongoing but could come back in the future, the people said.
Such a deal would reunite the two largest descendants of
John D. Rockefeller’s
Standard Oil monopoly, which was broken up by U.S. regulators in 1911, and reshape the oil industry.
A combined company’s market value could top $350 billion. Exxon has a market value of $190 billion, while Chevron’s is $164 billion. Together, they would likely form the world’s second largest oil company by market capitalization and production, producing about 7 million barrels of oil and gas a day, based on pre-pandemic levels, second only in both measures to Saudi Aramco.
But a merger of the two largest American oil companies could encounter regulatory and antitrust challenges under the Biden administration. President Biden has said climate change is one of the biggest crises the country faces. In October, he said he would push the country to “transition away from the oil industry.” He hasn’t been as vocal about antitrust matters, and the administration has yet to nominate the Justice Department’s head of that division.
One of the people familiar with the talks said the sides may have missed an opportunity to consummate the deal under former President
Donald Trump,
whose administration was seen as more friendly to the industry.
Darren Woods, CEO Exxon Mobil Corp., at an industry conference in 2018
Photo:
Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg News
A handful of sizable oil and gas deals were completed last year, including Chevron’s $5 billion takeover of Noble Energy Inc. and
ConocoPhillips
COP -2.63%
’ roughly $10 billion takeover of Concho Resources Inc., but nothing close to the scale of combining San Ramon, Calif.-based Chevron and Irving, Texas-based Exxon.
Such a deal would significantly surpass in size the mega-oil-mergers of the late 1990s and early 2000s, which included the combination of Exxon and Mobil and Chevron and Texaco Inc.
It also could be the largest corporate tie-up ever, depending on its structure. That distinction currently belongs to the roughly $181 billion purchase of German conglomerate Mannesmann AG by Vodafone AirTouch Plc in 2000, according to Dealogic.
Many investors, analysts and energy executives have called for consolidation in the beleaguered oil-and-gas industry, arguing that cutting costs and improving operational efficiencies would help companies weather the pandemic-induced downturn and prepare for an uncertain future as many countries seek to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels to combat climate change.
In an interview discussing Chevron’s earnings Friday, Mr. Wirth, who like Mr. Woods also serves as his company’s board chairman, said that consolidation could make the industry more efficient. He was speaking generally and not about a possible Exxon-Chevron merger.
“As for larger scale things, it’s happened before,” Mr. Wirth said, referring to the 1990s and early-2000s megamergers. “Time will tell.”
Paul Sankey,
an independent analyst who hypothesized a merger of Chevron and Exxon in October, estimated at the time that the combined company would have a market capitalization of about $300 billion and $100 billion in debt. A merger would allow them to cut a combined $15 billion in administrative expenses and $10 billion in annual capital expenditures, he wrote.
An abundance of fossil fuels combined with advances in technology to harness wind and solar power has sent energy prices crashing around the world. WSJ explains how it all happened at once. Photo illustration: Carlos Waters/WSJ
Exxon was America’s most valuable company seven years ago, with a market value of more than $400 billion, nearly double Chevron’s. But Exxon has fallen from its heights following a series of strategic missteps, which were further exacerbated by the pandemic. It has been eclipsed as a profit engine by tech giants such as
Apple Inc.
AAPL -3.74%
and
Amazon.com Inc.,
AMZN -0.97%
in recent years and was removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average last year for the first time since it was added as Standard Oil of New Jersey in 1928.
Exxon’s shares have fallen nearly 29% over the last year, while Chevron’s are down about 20%. Chevron briefly topped Exxon in market capitalization in the fall.
Exxon endured one of its worst financial performances ever in 2020. It is expected to report a fourth consecutive quarterly loss for the first time in modern history on Tuesday and already has posted more than $2 billion in losses through the first three quarters of 2020.
Chevron also has struggled, reporting nearly $5.5 billion in 2020 losses Friday. But investors have expressed more faith in Chevron because it entered the downturn with a stronger balance sheet—in part because it walked away from its $33 billion bid to buy Anadarko Petroleum Corp. before the pandemic, having been outbid by
Occidental Petroleum Corp.
OXY -4.25%
in 2019.
Exxon has about $69 billion in debt as of September, while Chevron has around $35 billion, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Some investors have grown increasingly concerned about Exxon’s direction under Mr. Woods as the company faces a rapidly changing energy industry and growing global consciousness about climate change. Some are also worried that Exxon may have to cut its hefty dividend, which costs it about $15 billion annually, due to its high debt levels. Many individual investors count on the payments as a source of income.
Mr. Woods embarked on an ambitious plan in 2018 to spend $230 billion to pump an additional one million barrels of oil and gas a day by 2025. But before the pandemic, production was up only slightly and Exxon’s financial flexibility was diminished. In November, Exxon retreated from the plan and said it would cut billions of dollars from its capital spending every year through 2025 and focus on investing in only the most promising assets.
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Meanwhile, the company’s woes have helped draw the attention of activist investors. One of them, Engine No. 1 LLC, has argued that the company should focus more on investments in clean energy while cutting costs elsewhere to preserve its dividend. The firm nominated four directors to Exxon’s board Wednesday and called for it to make strategic changes to its business plan.
Exxon also has been in talks with another activist, D.E. Shaw Group, and is preparing to announce one or more new board members, additional spending cuts and investments in new technologies to help it reduce its carbon emissions.
Rivals such as
BP
BP -2.80%
PLC and
Royal Dutch Shell
RDS.A -3.53%
PLC have embarked on bold strategies to remake their business as regulatory and investor pressure to reduce carbon emissions mounts. Both have said they will invest heavily in renewable energy—a strategy that their investors so far haven’t rewarded.
Exxon and Chevron haven’t invested substantially in renewables, instead choosing to double down on oil and gas. Both companies have argued that the world will need vast amounts of fossil fuels for decades to come, and that they can capitalize on current underinvestment in oil production.
Write to Christopher M. Matthews at christopher.matthews@wsj.com, Emily Glazer at emily.glazer@wsj.com and Cara Lombardo at cara.lombardo@wsj.com
Police said they found “no criminal violations and/or aspects in association with” the November 18 fire.
Hsieh’s death was announced in late November by a spokesperson for DTP Companies, an enterprise for which he served as the visionary. The spokesperson at the time said Hsieh died peacefully and surrounded by family. Dozens of tributes poured in on social media following the news, some calling Hsieh a “brilliant entrepreneur” and others praising his kindness and generosity.
In an incident report, the New London Fire Department said that while the cause of the fire is “undetermined,” human factors such as alcohol and drug impairment may have contributed to the blaze.
According to witness accounts in police incident reports, Hsieh had gone outside to sleep in a shed that was attached to the house he was staying in, after having an argument with the homeowner, who some witnesses described as Hsieh’s girlfriend, others as a friend.
Hsieh’s brother, friends and employees were also at the house as they were scheduled to leave to the island of Maui, Hawaii, early in the morning, the police reports say.
According to one report, Hsieh “was taking everyone to Hawaii for a get away.”
Witnesses told police Hsieh was being checked on every 10 minutes.
Hsieh’s personal assistant told police that before the fire, they saw Hsieh laying down in the shed with a blanket on, adding Hsieh had candles and a propane heater lit to provide heat inside the shed, according to the police report. The assistant noticed the “blanket was almost touching the flame of the candle” and pointed the possible hazard out to Hsieh, and told Hsieh to put the candle out, the police report says. Hsieh put the candle out, according to the report.
Hsieh eventually “asked that he be checked on every 5 minutes instead,” which the group complied with, according to one incident report.
The same report says that during that first five-minute check, witnesses “discovered smoke coming from inside the shed and they could not get inside because it was locked from the inside.”
Witnesses told police they broke a window and attempted to extinguish the fire, according to the police reports.
Hsieh’s personal assistant told police Hsieh’s dog had recently died and Hsieh was “distraught.” The assistant added they had “never heard the victim make (any) suicidal or homicidal statements.”
Emergency services personnel arrived at the home around 3:30 a.m., according to police, where firefighters forced the shed’s door open and removed Hsieh. He was then transported to the hospital.
The police report says the fire department was notified of Hsieh’s death on November 27 and that, according to a medical examiner’s investigator, Hsieh had brain edema from the hot gases and soot from the fire and was placed on a ventilator. The family requested that he be extubated, the police report says.
