Tony Hayward is stepping down as BP’s CEO to move to another role within the company, getting an $18 million golden parachute as he goes. BP is hoping Gulf Coast residents will view his replacement, Bob Dudley, more favorably in part because he’s an American who lived in Mississippi for a time.
Yet the very next day, BP is continuing to use Hayward’s rhetoric. A researcher on BP’s payroll predicts the BP oil disaster’s impact will be “quite small.” Hayward himself once infamously predicted the impact would be “relatively tiny.”
Last night I was at happy hour with friends talking about the disaster. “This is what BP doesn’t get: We don’t hate Tony Hayward because he’s British,” one of my friends said. “We hate him because he [screwed] the Gulf Coast.”
BP dumping its CEO but continuing its lies changes nothing.
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