WASHINGTON — Standing in the Oval Office on Monday, President Trump turned on two of his most reliable industry allies, singling out Chevron and ExxonMobil for what he called excessive profiteering while drivers keep absorbing high prices at the pump. "Chevron, too much money. ExxonMobil, too much. Too much money," the president told reporters during an executive-order signing, later adding, "I don't like it," according to CBS News and CNBC.
Trump's comments landed three days after both companies posted second-quarter numbers that ranked among their strongest in years. Chevron's adjusted earnings hit $12 billion, its best three-month stretch in at least six years, fueled by a near-tripling of profit from its oil-and-gas production business as benchmark crude prices climbed roughly 50% year over year, and by a sharp jump in refining margins tied to tightening fuel supplies, according to the company's own earnings coverage.
ExxonMobil, meanwhile, reported two separate, officially disclosed figures: GAAP earnings of $14.5 billion and adjusted earnings of $14.7 billion, according to the company's own second-quarter results release. These aren't dueling estimates from different news outlets — they're two standard accounting measures the company reports side by side every quarter, with the gap explained by one-time items ExxonMobil strips out of its adjusted number.
Checking the President's "12 Times" Math
Trump went further than just calling the profits excessive. "When you look at one company where they made 12 times what they made the year before, they ought to give some of that back to the public," he told reporters, per Fox Business.
That multiple doesn't match either company's filings. Chevron's $12 billion adjusted quarter compares to $2.5 billion in net income during the same period of 2025 — a gain of roughly 380%, or just under five times the year-earlier figure, not twelve, as the Motley Fool's breakdown of the numbers points out. ExxonMobil's growth was smaller still: profit more than doubled from $7.1 billion to $14.5 billion, a roughly 105% increase. Combined, the two majors booked about $26.5 billion in quarterly profit — a genuinely large haul, but not the twelvefold jump the president described.
None of that changes the reality at the pump. The nationwide average for a gallon of regular gasoline sat near $4.10 on Monday, according to AAA data cited by CNBC — close to 40% above the $2.98 average recorded on Feb. 27, the day before U.S. and Israeli forces opened fire on Iran.
A War That Rewired the Oil Market
The run-up traces to the conflict's disruption of tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint that normally carries roughly a fifth of the world's crude supply. International Energy Agency chief Fatih Birol has called the resulting shock the most severe the energy world has ever recorded — worse than the 1973 oil embargo and the disruption from Russia's war in Ukraine combined, a comparison relayed by CNBC. U.S. crude prices have climbed roughly 20% since fighting resumed in late February.
The conflict hasn't moved in a straight line, though. A ceasefire around mid-June briefly pulled gasoline prices down by nearly 50 cents a gallon, Deseret News reported at the time, before renewed hostilities pushed prices back up heading into August. On the very day Trump made his remarks, Brent crude — the global benchmark — actually slid more than 4% to settle near $84 a barrel, as traders welcomed news that Trump had called off a planned strike on Iran in favor of renewed diplomatic talks, according to CNBC's oil-markets coverage.
Old Friends, New Feud
Trump's frustration carried a personal edge as well. In a Truth Social post, he accused Chevron chief executive Mike Wirth of failing to credit the administration for keeping the industry afloat, after Wirth discussed the war's risks to global supply during a weekend Fox News appearance, according to KTVU's report on the exchange. Wirth has separately said the danger to energy supply lines now extends beyond Hormuz, pointing to Houthi attacks that have pulled the Red Sea into the conflict too, per earnings-call coverage. Trump also referenced Chevron's return to Venezuela's oil fields — a move he framed as proof the company already owes part of its fortunes to his policies, per the same KTVU report.
Neither company responded directly to Trump's Monday remarks. ExxonMobil declined to comment, and Chevron did not respond to requests for comment from multiple outlets, including CBS News and ABC News.
This wasn't Trump's first public pressure campaign against the industry this year. In late June, he directed the Justice Department to open an inquiry into whether oil companies were slow to cut prices as crude costs eased, accusing the industry of "gouging" customers in a post published just after midnight. The American Petroleum Institute pushed back at the time, arguing that pump prices don't track crude costs in real time, particularly during a major supply disruption.
Axios noted that the threat revived a familiar playbook: presidents dating back to Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden have all opened similar inquiries into the oil industry, with none turning up evidence of coordinated price-fixing beyond a handful of isolated cases. Fortune separately observed that the friction marks a sharp reversal for a president whose 2024 campaign leaned heavily on oil-industry money, including a push for roughly $1 billion in industry donations at a private fundraiser.
What Actually Moves the Needle at the Pump
Federal data complicate the idea that oil companies alone set what drivers pay. Crude oil accounts for roughly 51% of the retail gasoline price, per Energy Information Administration figures cited in Georgia Tech's breakdown of the numbers, with refining adding about 20% and distribution and marketing contributing roughly 11%. The remaining share — close to a fifth of the total — comes from federal, state and local fuel taxes, a piece of the pricing puzzle that has nothing to do with oil-company profit margins.
Trump isn't the first president to make this argument, either. His predecessor, Joe Biden, leveled similar criticism at oil companies during a stretch of high inflation, suggesting the political impulse to blame energy firms for pump prices crosses party lines.
For now, both companies have stayed publicly quiet, and it remains unclear whether the administration will escalate beyond the DOJ inquiry it opened in June.
