At the headquarters of Elliott Management in New York, the hedge fund’s energy team now has T-shirts with “Gulf of America” printed on them, including one with a picture of Donald Trump as a pirate, in honour of the US president’s preferred name for the Gulf of Mexico.
It is a far cry from the mood even last year. Then, the activist investor questioned whether calling for an oil major to scale back its green spending would risk a backlash from environmentalists and even the media, according to people who spoke with the hedge fund at the time.
Times have changed. As shares in UK oil group BP sank to a two-year low last November the activist investor was already busy building what has grown into a near £3.8bn stake in the troubled company.