Connor Gaydos, the new CEO of the purportedly rebooted Enron Corporation, was hit with a plate full of pie in New York City on Thursday, December 12. The incident is reminiscent of when a California woman threw a pie at former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling in 2001 and a similar episode where Bill Gates had several pies hurled into his face in the late ’90s.
Enron CEO viral pie incident explained
In a viral video circulating on X (formerly Twitter) and other social media platforms, Enron CEO Connor Gaydos can be seen exiting a black vehicle with members of his security team when a seemingly older man slammed a pie into his face. The legitimacy of the incident has since been brought into question. According to X Community Notes and other sources, it might have been staged. However, no official confirmation is yet available.
Notably, Enron was an American energy company that emerged from a merger between Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth in 1985. At one point, it had over 20,000 employees and a purported revenue of over $101 billion. However, the company faced allegations of fraud and filed for bankruptcy in 2001.
In 2020, an Arkansas-based organization called The College Company acquired the Enron trademark was acquired for $275. When the announcement of the reboot happened, it came with the promise of a “bold vision of the future.” In addition, it was announced that an Enron Power Summit would be held on January 6, 2025. Reflecting on the company’s troubled past, Gyados said in a statement, “It’s true. We’ve had poor leadership in the past, but thankfully, the past is prologue, and now we’re turning the page … what we’re doing behind the scenes and what we’re about to release is truly groundbreaking. It’s truly revolutionary.” (via Houston Chronicle)
Gaydos is a co-founder of The College Company. He is also the co-creator of the Birds Aren’t Real movement. This mock conspiracy campaign claims birds are actually governmental drones created as a spying mechanism against US citizens.
Given this precedence of satire and parody associated with The College Company and Gaydos, there is a considerable possibility that the Enron reboot might be a similar case.