Out of all the possible things to revive from the early 2000s, the return of boot-cut jeans was welcomed by many of my fellow Gen Xers, but no one — no one — was asking for this.
Enron is back.
Well, maybe.
It’s not entirely clear what exactly the company is planning, but an account labeled as “Enron” posted a one-minute video on Monday with a breezy montage of diverse people ending with an announcement that raised eyebrows across the internet.
It should perhaps be noted that Enron collapsed in a multibillion-dollar bankruptcy in late 2001 due to a massive fraud scheme that wiped out stockholders’ investments and employees’ pensions, led to the dissolution of its accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, and resulted in multiple criminal convictions, including both the CEO at the time and his predecessor — several years before Twitter, now rebranded as X, launched in the summer of 2006. So this account, and its posts, all were created long after the original company was no longer in existence.
The @Enron account indicates it was launched in May 2024, links to enron.com, and declares itself to be the “World’s Leading Company™” — leading in what is not clear, although the website declares it is an “energy company” that is “proud” to be “center[ed] on exploring, expanding, and implementing bold new energy ideas to light a brighter path.” Enron.com was the domain previously used by the company; archived versions of the site dating back to 1998 can be viewed at the Internet Archive.
“The world is changing faster than ever. Can you feel it?” the video posted by @Enron begins. “Growth. Transformation. Rebirth.”
[…]
The website teases “something very special” to be unveiled in eight days (that’s one more day than the cursed videotape in the 2002 horror thriller The Ring took to kill its victims, but I digress).
Indeed, there is an enron.com again, which I admit I visited yesterday out of sheer morbid curiosity. And here’s that Enron account on Twitter; the thread announcing its presence is the bulk of this story, with the rest being reactions to it and speculation about what it might mean. So far, the leading theory is that there’s a crypto scam underneath it all. I guess we’ll find out next week. As the story notes at the end, there’s a full-page ad in the print section of the Monday Houston Chronicle – I took a picture of it that you can see here – so if nothing else there’s a few bucks behind this effort, whatever it turns out to be. It could be a parody – read the story all the way through to see the evidence for that – but honestly a new Enron shitcoin would be the perfect form of rebirth for that cursed company. We live in very strange times.
UPDATE: The Chron adds on.
Enron Corporation denied the Chronicle’s request for an interview, but documents filed with the U.S. Patents and Trademark Office indicate the College Company, an Arkansas-based LLC that described itself on LinkedIn as “a multi-facet parent company which creates and operates clothing brands in the United States,” currently holds the rights to the multi-colored “E Enron” trademark seen on the billboard and Monday news release.
According to trademark documents, in June the company granted the rights to the “E Enron” trademark to the Enron Corporation for $1. An individual named Charles Gaydos, who identified as the owner of the College Company and the CEO of Enron Corporation, signed on behalf of both entities. The College Company did not respond to the Chronicle’s request for comment.
The College Company also owns several trademarks related to a popular gag-conspiracy theory called Birds Aren’t Real. The gag became popular among Gen Z users on social media around 2020, and claimed birds are not animals but government-controlled drones sent to spy on U.S. citizens.
Trademark documents indicate the College Company owns the rights to the Birds Aren’t Real brand for use on stickers, apparel and “promoting public awareness.”
Although the company’s messaging appears to allude to a return to the energy sector, the exact nature of Enron’s new business remains unclear. The company’s Monday news release and website are loaded with vague promises including “solving the energy crisis,” but little has been made public regarding the operational nuts and bolts.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office lists an array of products and mediums in which Enron Corporation may use it’s recently-acquired trademark. In addition to T-shirts, blankets and sunglasses, trademark documents also indicate the company plans to use the “E Enron” logo for “crypto currency services, namely, crypto currency exchange services.”
Certainly doesn’t contradict any of the first reporting I saw. Make of that what you will.
bad parody?
Molly White posts “ their website’s terms of use say it’s parody.”
https://bsky.app/profile/molly.wiki/post/3lcdqpash6q2a