The CEO was part of the satirical Enron relaunch in a viral video

The claim: The video shows the CEO of Enron being hit in the face with a cake

A December 13 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) shows a man being hit in the face by a pie in an image that is a screenshot of an X post.

“Enron’s new CEO hit with a cake in NYC,” the X post’s headline reads.

Several commenters said the video was satire, but others seemed to take it seriously.

“I bet for a second he thought he was dead,” one commenter wrote. Another said: “I hope we can keep it up.”

The image was shared more than 1,000 times in about two weeks. Similar posts circulated on threads and Instagram.

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Our Rating: Satire

This post is satire on several levels. The “Enron CEO” shown in the image is a satirist who has adopted the Enron trademark as performance art, and the cake on the face appears to have been staged to resemble an infamous cake attack on Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

Enron CEO is part of the company’s satirical renaming

Enron was an energy trading company that filed for bankruptcy in 2001 after it was revealed that it had overstated its profits. The FBI called the case “the most complex white-collar crime investigation” in the agency’s history.

In 2021, a company called The College Company LLC took over registration of the Enron trademark to sell clothing, according to federal patent and trademark filings. The application lists an email address that contains Connor Gaydos’ name as the main contact person. Gaydos and the College Company are also behind Birds Aren’t Real – a satirical fake conspiracy theory that states that birds no longer exist and have been replaced by bird-like government drones to spy on citizens.

The Enron brand resurfaced online in December, 23 years after the energy company filed for bankruptcy. The new website describes the company as “nice” and “remorseful” and includes a video in which Gaydos introduces himself as CEO.

The use of parodies is set out in the fine print. The site’s terms and conditions state: “The information on the site is a parody protected by the First Amendment, constitutes performance art, and is for entertainment purposes only.”

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On December 4, two days after the reemergence of the Enron brand, a gunman shot and killed UnitedHealth Care CEO Brian Thompson in midtown Manhattan. The shooting sparked a national discussion about health insurance ethics and political violence.

The cake video appears to have surfaced about a week later. Several commenters compared the cake incident to the shooting.

“Luigi’s influence is spreading lol,” one commenter wrote on the Facebook post, presumably referring to the alleged shooter Luigi Mangione.

The setup of the alleged Enron pie incident closely resembles the infamous 1998 incident in which Gates was hit in the face with a pie. In both cases, the victim was walking from a street onto a sidewalk in a densely populated urban area when the person with the cake jumped out from behind a pillar.

A company has a pending application to use Enron’s trademark for cryptocurrency exchanges, among other things.

The College Company also has a pending application to use the mark for “educational and entertainment services,” including “an ongoing program about the dangers of corporatism and corporate greed.”

Spokesman Will Chabot told the Washington Post that Enron would have more to say soon. As of December 23, the company’s website featured a live countdown to a January 6 event called “The Enron Power Summit.”

USA TODAY reached out to the media contact email address listed on Enron’s website but did not immediately receive a response. The account that posted the image on Facebook did not provide any evidence to support the claim when contacted by USA TODAY.

Our fact-checking sources

Enron, accessed December 20, Enron.com
FBI, accessed December 23, Famous Cases and Criminals: Enron
Patent and Trademark Office, accessed December 20, trademark status and document retrieval
The New York Times, April 20, 1998, Brussels Journal; The philosopher with the cake and the glitter in his eye
The Washington Post, December 3, Enron brand returns online, but read the fine print

The CEO was part of the satirical Enron relaunch in a viral video

ByAmelia Journalton

By Amelia Journalton

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