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It’s the comeback story nobody requested for — the resurrection of a model so poisonous it stays synonymous with company fraud greater than 20 years after it collapsed in chapter. That’s proper, of us: Enron is again. But solely form of.
TL;DR: An organization that makes T-shirts purchased the Enron trademark and seems to be attempting to promote some merch on behalf of the man behind the satirical conspiracy idea “Birds Aren’t Real.”
No, this isn’t a bit. Here’s the longer model:
On Monday, the twenty third anniversary of Enron’s submitting for chapter, rumors started to unfold that the previous Texas vitality big had come again from the lifeless. A smooth new web site, enron.com, appeared to indicate that the corporate had achieved some severe soul-searching and, inexplicably, reincorporated below its authentic model. As a contemporary vitality firm, it could be devoted to “fixing the worldwide vitality disaster,” its press assertion reads.
The website is filled with the form of inventory artwork and benign company platitudes that lend it credibility. There’s a hyperlink to job openings, worker testimonials and even a minute-long video titled “I’m Enron,” a movie-trailer-style mashup of cityscape time lapses, rockets launching into area, a ballerina twirling on a seashore — a large number of images and baritone voiceover so trite it’s virtually plausible.
But the positioning and its related social media accounts are, like Enron’s steadiness sheets, principally fiction. Unlike the Enron scandal, nonetheless, this one seems to be little greater than efficiency artwork designed to promote branded hoodies.
Publicly obtainable paperwork present that an Akansas-based LLC referred to as The College Company purchased the Enron trademark for $275 in 2020.
The co-founder of that firm is Connor Gaydos, who, together with Peter McIndoe, created “Birds Aren’t Real,” a mock conspiracy idea that claims the federal government changed all birds with drone replicas which might be spying on Americans. Gaydos and McIndoe have had a great run with the hen bit, which began with a single joke and morphed right into a Gen Z-fueled motion … of types.
You might name it a high-brow commentary on social media’s means to distort actuality and infect folks with false concepts concerning the world. Or you may name it an harmless joke that offered a number of T-shirts.
Which brings us again to the Enron gambit.
When I reached out to the Enron press electronic mail listed on the positioning, I acquired a reply a couple of minutes later — not from an Enron rep, however moderately from a media strategist on the New York communications agency Stu Loeser & Co. The strategist stated “we’ll have extra to share quickly,” however declined to remark past the assertion posted on the Enron website. An electronic mail to Stu Loeser & Co looking for extra data on the agency’s ties to this … no matter that is … went unanswered.
Gaydos didn’t reply to an electronic mail looking for remark. McIndoe couldn’t instantly be reached to remark.
In its assertion, oddly posted as a picture file on the Enron website, the corporate lays out its “daring new imaginative and prescient” to fixing the world’s vitality issues. Among its “key pillars” is a dedication to “permissionless innovation,” aka crypto — a nod that prompted some hypothesis on-line that the brand new “Enron” would launch some form of digital token.
An Enron-branded X account posted and later deleted a message teasing at a crypto providing, saying “we should not have any token or coin (but). Stay tuned, we’re excited to indicate you extra quickly.”
So what’s occurring?
The fundamental web page on the Enron website features a countdown clock, which, as of Monday afternoon, confirmed 7 days and 17 hours to go till Enron has “one thing very particular to introduce.”
Meanwhile, you possibly can tab over to the positioning’s “Company Store” web page to browse a collection of Enron-branded hoodies ($118 earlier than tax and transport), puffer vests ($89), tees ($40) baseball hats ($40), beanies ($30) and water bottles emblazoned with the slogan “you’ve bought nice vitality.”
