Rex Tillerson started his career at ExxonMobil and became its chairman and CEO in the year 2006. He was the secretary of State from 2017 up to 2018. Rex Wayne Tillerson was born in the year 1952 and he did swear in like 69th secretary of the State under Donald J Trump President. While working, he had some clashes with the administration of Trump and this led to his dismissal. Before, he was working as a chairman and CEO for ExxonMobil since 2006 until 2016. Most of his career years were spent working at the company so he became the secretary of the state without any experience in military or government.
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According to his biography, Tillerson rose from the modest beginning and end up accumulating up to 300 million dollars as net worth. He retired with a package of over 180 million dollars. this was the equivalent cash value for the unpaid stock and it was put into an independent trust to avoid the conflict of interest.
While working as a secretary of State, Rex Tillerson dealt with the nuclear armed North Korea with the trade concerns from China. He had also to deal with the problems of compliance of Iran to the agreement of freezing the nuclear program. However, he had to deal with all such problems without a large diplomatic corps as it happened with the predecessors.
When Tillerson took over the office, he wanted to redesign the state department. He had a goal of eliminating the personnel overlaps with the bureaucratic deadwood. This is something that some of the departments welcomed at first. However, some critics said that the diplomacy of US was undermined and it was because of the loss of the personnel that had special knowledge.
Since Tillerson intended to get to eight percent of the reduction of the full time staff, some of the openings that were left because of attrition, retirements or resignations were not filled up. The buyouts were offered so that people can depart. Few members of the Foreign Services got hired.
For his personal life, Tillerson was married to Jamie Lee Henry who was a high school bandmate. They got married after the graduation from College and they had two boys; twins before their divorce. In the year 1983, Tillerson got married again to Renda House and they had a son together, in addition of a child of Renda from an old relationship. Renda is the one who convinced his husband to take up the Secretary of State Job.
Rexy Tillerson was named Rex Wayne Tillerson at his birth and his name came from two Hollywood stars who were playing as cowboys. They were Rex Allen and John Wayne. He was born as a second child in three children and lived in Oklahoma for some part of his childhood. He is the author of Arctic Potential: Realizing the promise of US Arctic Oil and Gas Resources book.
Last Modified: Mar 6, 2020
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