Australian tycoon Andrew Forrest battles it out with oil giant ExxonMobil

When it comes to stirring up trouble in corporate America, Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest is gaining quite a reputation. Last year, the Australian mining tycoon turned green campaigner doubled down on his long-running war with Meta – suing the social media platform for failing to prevent numerous scams on its platforms. Now he is in the cross hairs of ExxonMobil, which has accused Forrest and others of orchestrating “smear campaigns” for “publicity and personal gain”.

Forrest himself is not a defendant in the defamation case, notes The Guardian. But he is “mentioned by name more than 20 times in the claim”, which targets a Forrest-linked charity – the Intergenerational Environmental Justice Fund (IEJF) – as well as several California-based environmental groups. In a nod to Maga’s preoccupations, Exxon alleges that Forrest harboured “a dream of upending the American oil and gas industry”. Twiggy’s reaction is to bring it on. He claims to be “personally delighted” by the lawsuit if it means that the fossil-fuel behemoth opens itself up to cross-examination in court. Worth around $16 billion, Forrest certainly doesn’t lack the funds to give Exxon a run for its money. Neither is he short of dedication and persistence. When waging war on Meta, he created “a mission-control-style room” staffed around the clock by cybersecurity professionals, says The Wall Street Journal. Doubtless he’ll deploy similar tenacity now.

A “complex personality”, Forrest, 63, is a bundle of contradictions, says the Daily Mail. Despite making his fortune mining iron ore and building his company, Fortescue, into an operation valued at around $60 billion, he has emerged as a prominent climate warrior. Born in Western Australia and raised on the family property, Minderoo (after which he named his not-for-profit foundation), Forrest is descended from “the equivalent of state royalty”. His great-great-grandfather was among four brothers who were the “founding parliamentarians” of Western Australia.

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In the 1980s, he moved to Sydney and got into stockbroking, says Nikkei Asia. But the outback beckoned and “he turned his sights on Australia’s mineral riches”, buying his first mining venture, Anaconda Nickel, in 1993. As Forrest’s biographer Andrew Burrell noted 20 years later, it was the start of a “high-stakes” ride. The relationship between Anaconda and its key shareholder, the Swiss commodities group Glencore, was always “tense”, says the Australian Financial Review. But amid project delays and mounting debt, it drifted into “open warfare”. In the ensuing “Anaconda squeeze” in 2001, Forrest was forced to cede control amid losses of around $1 billion; shares plunged by around 89% from their peak. Forrest retreated to Europe but returned having spotted an opportunity to sell iron ore to fast-growing China. He gained control of a junior explorer for just $8 million, changed its name to Fortescue Metals, and set about building an empire.

Andrew Forrest's big bet on green energy

In 2011, Forrest stepped down as CEO of Fortescue and he and his wife became the first Australian billionaires to pledge the majority of their wealth to charity. As well as green causes, they have majored in children’s education, Aboriginal employment and a global campaign against human slavery. After a worldwide trip in 2020, “Forrest’s green ambitions roared into a new phase”, notes a profile by the Sydney investment company FC Capital.

As he describes it, “I felt a change in the global mood, a shift in belief that the impossible could be possible”. He responded by pushing audaciously into green hydrogen at Fortescue and beefing up his renewable energy company, Squadron Energy. Forrest’s ultimate aim is to transform Australia into “a renewable-energy superpower”. Don’t bet against it – whatever Exxon has to throw at him.

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