Elliott's Masterclass in Dismantling BP's Green Ambitions

Murray Auchincloss's hand trembled slightly as he spread Elliott Management's demands across BP's mahogany boardroom table. Early in his CEO tenure, the former CFO now faced a meticulously orchestrated campaign designed to dismantle the very climate strategy he'd helped craft. Elliott, armed with a freshly acquired 5% stake worth £3.8 billion, had launched a three-pronged attack that would leave BP's green ambitions in tatters.

John Pike, a veteran of successful campaigns at Marathon Petroleum and Hess, knew BP's vulnerabilities intimately. Alongside Gaurav Toshniwal, Elliott's energy specialists had crafted battlefield demands with surgical precision: split BP into separate upstream and downstream units, remove strategy chief Giulia Chierchia – the architect of BP's renewable vision – and impose a nearly impossible financial target of $20 billion in free cash flow by 2027, more than double the current $8 billion.

"Elliott doesn't just want a seat at the table – they want to redesign the entire room," explained a former BP executive who requested anonymity. "Their genius lies in making their financial demands so aggressive that climate commitments become mathematically impossible to maintain."

Building the Shadow Coalition

While most activist campaigns deploy frontal assaults through public pressure, Elliott executed a classic flanking maneuver through shadow coalition-building. Pike and Toshniwal infiltrated BP's investor base with surgical precision, conducting one-on-one meetings with more than 20 of BP's largest shareholders to secure their supply lines before BP's leadership could establish defensive positions.

Even more striking was Elliott's tactical innovation – taking short positions in Shell (0.5%) and TotalEnergies (0.6%) while pushing BP to outperform them by abandoning climate commitments. This hedging strategy protected Elliott if its BP campaign triggered industry-wide stock declines.

"They've revived the ambush attack," noted one industry analyst, referring to Elliott's strategy of publicly announcing positions without warning. The firm's battlefield record spoke volumes – 12 board seats secured across 15 companies in the previous year alone.

Forcing Strategic Surrender

By April 2025, BP's surrender was complete. Auchincloss announced the abandonment of former CEO Bernard Looney's climate strategy, increasing fossil fuel investments by $10 billion through 2027 while slashing renewable investments by over $5 billion.

"We chased too much," Auchincloss admitted, signaling a dramatic reset toward oil and gas. The company dropped its target to cut oil and gas output by 40% by 2030, now planning to grow production to between 2.3 and 2.5 million barrels daily.

The capitulation wasn't just about numbers. It represented something far more profound: the complete dismantling of BP's industry-leading climate commitments. Gone. The same commitments that had positioned BP as a potential transition leader just months earlier now lay in ruins, casualties of a financial blitzkrieg.

BP's share price surged 8% following the announcement, validating Elliott's strategy in the market's eyes. For climate-focused investors who had supported BP's previous direction, the message was clear: Wall Street valued fossil fuel profits over climate progress.

Counting Battlefield Casualties

On April 29, 2025, the highest-profile casualty of Elliott's campaign was announced: Giulia Chierchia, BP's strategy and sustainability chief, would leave on June 1. More telling than her departure was BP's decision to abolish her role entirely, integrating her sustainability team into other business functions.

The timing was brutal – coinciding with BP's lower-than-expected quarterly results, profits having fallen from $2.7 billion to $1.4 billion year-over-year. The message was unmistakable: sustainability was being sacrificed on the altar of financial performance.

BP's chair Helge Lund, who had championed the previous climate strategy, faced his own battlefield wounds with 24.3% of shareholders voting against his re-election at a recent AGM – the first time in over a decade that more than 10% opposed a chair's re-election.

Repelling the Counteroffensive

Despite commanding vastly superior forces – collectively controlling over 30% of BP's shares compared to Elliott's 5% beachhead – climate-focused investors mounted a fragmented, ineffective defense. Their divided command structure and delayed response time left them outflanked before the battle had truly begun.

A coalition of 48 institutional investors holding 2.5% of BP's shares demanded a binding vote on climate strategy changes – half the size of Elliott's stake and too little, too late. Even more telling: half of BP's top ten institutional investors are members of Climate Action 100+, a coalition advocating for corporate climate accountability. Yet their collective influence proved no match for Elliott's coordinated campaign.

"This historical result serves as a wake-up call to BP's board," warned Mark Van Baal, founder of Follow This, after shareholder support for climate resolutions fell to 15% from 21% the previous year.

Planning Forward Reconnaissance

Elliott's BP campaign provides a masterclass in dismantling corporate climate commitments. The consequences are measurable: BP's emissions are projected to increase from 2,113 MtCO2e to approximately 2,344 MtCO2e by 2030 – equivalent to keeping over 70 million cars on the road during that period.

For ESG investors, the implications extend far beyond BP. Elliott's success creates a replicable playbook that could be deployed against any oil major with ambitious climate targets. Climate-focused investors face a stark choice: develop more effective countermeasures against Elliott's tactical innovations, or watch as similar campaigns roll back climate commitments across the energy sector.

The battlefield has been redrawn, and the next campaign is already being planned.