Oil Majors Bank Trump-Era Windfall as Shell Nearly Doubles Quarterly Profit

Shell’s third-quarter numbers landed today, and they are the strongest the company has posted since 2022 — the year energy markets convulsed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Profits roughly doubled year over year, putting the broader oil bloc on course for a combined haul near $53 billion.

BP, ExxonMobil, Chevron and TotalEnergies are all expected to land in that same pool. The timing is not accidental.

The Political Arithmetic

During the campaign, Trump openly asked fossil fuel executives to bankroll his run, framing the money as an investment in friendlier regulation. That bet is now paying out — for the donors.

A report compiled by the Joint Economic Committee in Congress estimates that Trump’s own holdings in oil and gas equities have swelled by up to $35.8 million. The president’s personal portfolio, in other words, has been moving in the same direction as the industry he regulates.

The Numbers: Shell Q3 earnings nearly doubled year over year · its best quarter since 2022 · Big Oil combined total projected at $53 billion · Trump oil and gas stock gains up to $35.8 million

The driver cited by critics is the war with Iran, which has pushed energy prices sharply higher. Expensive crude is good news for producers and painful for everyone buying fuel at the pump.

Sierra Club Pushes Back

Mahyar Sorour, who leads Beyond Fossil Fuels policy at the Sierra Club, did not mince words. He argued the roughly $1 billion the industry put into the campaign is now delivering outsized returns.

• On the deal: Sorour describes the arrangement as a straight trade — money for deregulation.
• On the president: He says Trump is enriching himself while household budgets tighten.
• On the fix: The Sierra Club wants a windfall profits tax to claw back some of the gains.

“Trump does not care about people’s health or about building a secure, clean energy future,” Sorour said, adding that the administration’s priority is the financial health of its allies in the sector.

What This Means for the Energy Transition

Every quarter like this one makes the policy fight sharper. Cheap, stable clean power is the long-term competitor to oil and gas, and high crude prices tend to make the case for electrification easier to sell to consumers — even as they raise the cost of everything else.

For now, the earnings calendar is the scoreboard. Shell has posted its number. The rest of the majors report in the coming days, and the $53 billion figure will either hold or drift. Either way, the political argument over who profits from this market is only getting louder.