Kelcy Warren decided that it was time to make himself famous in a really dumb way
If this keeps up, he could give oligarchs a bad name.
When corporations end up in a crisis, Joe Householder’s billing rate doubles. He’s used to telling CEOs and senators what to do and say when everything looks lost. In his debut for The Experiment, my friend Joe gives us his reaction to Kelcy Warren’s lawsuit against Beto O’Rourke.
by Joe Householder
Igor Sechin is not to be gazed upon.
That, at least, is my recollection of the instructions I got when I was once at the office of a company where Sechin – the Russian Oligarch who runs the largely state-owned oil company Rosneft – was visiting. More broadly I was informed that Mr. Sechin travels with highly protective bodyguards who are very suspicious, and it would be in my own best interest to just be about my business – looking down or away – should I encounter him and them in an office hallway.
I did see them that day – Sechin, well-coiffed and important looking, surrounded by two or three masses of meat in suits with bulges appropriate to the heavily muscled and heavily armed.
I kept my head down.
That was my only close encounter with a true Russian Oligarch as all my other awareness of this particular class of very, very rich people is through what I read in news coverage. As far as very, very rich people in the United States – I’ve met a few of them. I’ve spent some time with a couple, shared a laugh or two. I was able to gaze on them without fear of being shot by a bodyguard, and that’s different.
Kelcy Warren is one of those very, very rich people most people had never heard of.
The fact is, as Americans we generally think our Billionaires are different from their Billionaires. Igor Sechin is the uberrich evil leader of a Russian oil company. Jeff Bezos is the really smart creator of the best ever online shopping experience who went to elementary school in Houston so he must be a totally normal guy. Alisher Usmanov owns a superyacht that’s just been seized by the Germans so he must be truly bad. Elon Musk makes a cool car and moved to Texas because taxes and unions are bad, and they’ll help him avoid both of those things there.
You see – different. We could always agree on that. At least we could until Kelcy Warren decided that it was time to make himself famous in a really dumb way.
Just like Alisher Usmanov (see above), Kelcy Warren is one of those very, very rich people most people had never heard of. I mean, you know who he is if you work in, invest in, or follow the energy industry. You may know who he is if you are into music memorabilia because he spends some of his billions collecting musical artifacts. But, if you’re just a regular Bezos-loving American – you probably would scratch your head when someone mentions Kelcy Warren.
Back to the dumb thing – essentially Kelcy Warren decided he wanted to be more like Igor Sechin – not to be gazed upon or threatened in anyway. But, instead of surrounding himself with big bulging bodyguards, he surrounded himself with big bulging law firm partners who jumped at the chance to identify a threat to their man’s privilege and file suit over it.
That threat, as you may know, is in the person of Beto O’Rourke – the Democratic nominee for Governor of Texas.
In addition to being the culprits, they were also the winners. Kelcy Warren being the biggest one.
O’Rourke, who gained national notoriety for skateboarding in a What-A-Burger parking lot while losing a Senate race to Ted Cruz, is now facing off against incumbent Texas Governor Gregg Abbott. Abbott, he’s determined, is most vulnerable over his handling of the big Texas freeze of 2021.
It’s nothing to make light of. The power went out for days and hundreds of people died. Story after story has since emerged that illustrate how the Governor bungled the response, and – after the fact - worked hard to aid the natural gas companies that were the real culprits in the outage (no, it wasn’t frozen windmills) by making sure they didn’t get punished.
In addition to being the culprits, they were also the winners. Kelcy Warren being the biggest one. While other people died or were severely harmed, Warren’s pipeline company – Energy Transfer Partners - reaped a $2.4 billion dollar windfall from the freeze. And then, after the subsequent legislative session in which his ability to do it again was protected, he cut a $1 million check to Greg Abbott.
Now, Warren has never been averse to writing six and seven figure checks to Republicans. Abbott’s predecessor, Rick Perry, was one of those and while Perry famously couldn’t remember the name of the federal agency he eventually was hired to run, it’s certain he remembers the name Kelcy Warren – in part at least due to the $6 million Warren handed him one day. Donald Trump was also a beneficiary of Warren’s largesse in his 2016 presidential run (the one he actually won, not the one he lied about winning).
Who cares if the lawsuit has any merit?
But, from a campaign standpoint, that doesn’t matter. O’Rourke and his team saw a juicy credible campaign opportunity and they seized it and they continued to seize it day after day – hoping to drag down Abbott by tying Kelcy Warren and his alleged willingness to profit from the suffering of everyday Texans around Abbott’s neck.
Warren is not amused, and neither are the lawyers at the Jones Day law firm who Warren has hired as his bodyguards. They’ve now gone to court – suing O’Rourke to get him to stop. Now, being sued by a billionaire who has hired one of the nation’s most powerful law firms might seem like an intimidating thing – but if you’re the underdog candidate in a race for Governor you couldn’t ask for anything better.
Who cares if the lawsuit has any merit? It most likely doesn’t, but if it does, who cares? While it’s true that Kelcy Warren gave Greg Abbott a million dollars that he can spend on his reelection campaign - it's also true that Kelcy Warren gave Beto O’Rourke the equivalent of multiple millions of dollars in free publicity that – if he plays it smart – he’ll be able to milk from now till November.
This lawsuit can generate story after story after story and in each Kelcy Warren will be the angry Texas Oligarch who cashed in on a statewide tragedy but who has decided none of us should gaze upon his behavior or talk about or campaign for office around it solely by virtue of the fact that he’s a big, important, powerful guy. None of what I just said in the preceding sentence may be a fact, but it doesn’t matter. It’s a narrative, and it’s the narrative handed over to Beto O’Rourke by the genius Kelcy Warren and his genius bodyguards at Jones Day.
Maybe Warren doesn’t care. Maybe he’s so badly besmirched, and, as he says in the lawsuit, harmed by O’Rourke’s nastiness that even if the lawsuit costs him his investment – I mean the governor – reelection, it doesn’t matter. His good name is so much more important than the trifle of statewide governance. Maybe that’s the case and, if so, filing the lawsuit makes more sense.
But if this is really about attempting to shut down a story then it’s a different discussion altogether. (Spoiler alert: It’s the latter).
I may be too afraid to cast my gaze upon a visiting Russian oligarch but I’m looking squarely into the eyes of this American one and thinking – Kelcy, that was one stupid move.
Joe Householder has spent more than 25 years advising C-suite clients on crisis management, media relations and litigation communications experience. In 2000, after more than 15 years as a broadcast journalist focused on local and state politics and governance, Joe joined an international law firm, establishing its first-ever external and litigation communications operation. From there, he entered politics as a senior-level strategist in municipal campaigns as well as the 2002 reelection of then Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack. Later, Joe served as communications director to then United States Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Follow him on Twitter at @JoeHouseholder.
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