Grifter Energy Secretary Chris Wright hurriedly deletes misleading tweet.
For days, the global oil market has swung wildly while traders from New York to London to Singapore have watched footage of drones and missiles flying across the Middle East. Tuesday’s selloff was sparked in part by a social-media post.
A plunge in oil prices intensified in the early afternoon after Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on X that “The U.S. Navy successfully escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz to ensure oil remains flowing to global markets.” The prospect of a prolonged energy shock momentarily dimmed. Futures for oil, diesel and gasoline slid. Stocks jumped.
But the message vanished within minutes, leaving investors the world over struggling to see through the fog of war emanating from the Trump administration itself.
U.S. officials soon after said that the military isn’t currently escorting commercial ships through one of the world’s chokepoints for oil and natural gas.
“A video clip was deleted from Secretary Wright’s official X account after it was determined to be incorrectly captioned by Department of Energy staff,” an agency spokesperson said. The administration is reviewing other options to resume tanker traffic, the spokesperson added, “including the potential for our Navy to escort tankers.”
The since-deleted post was enough to wipe out million-dollar trades. Benchmark U.S. crude futures plunged by as much as 19% at one point. During a roughly 10-minute span when Wright’s post appeared, an exchange-traded fund linked to oil futures saw $84 million of its market capitalization evaporate.
“That’s an unforgivable error right there,” said Robert Yawger, commodity specialist at Mizuho Securities.
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Joint Chiefs Chair “Raisin” Cain punts when asked about Naval capability to escort ships safely thru Hormuz.