‘Kremlin’s Puppet’ Leadership Shifts Weeks After Trump Admin Threat

Global commodities firm Gunvor Group announced that its CEO is stepping down amid a management-led buyout on Monday, just weeks after the Trump administration denounced the Swiss ⚡Energy giant as the “Kremlin’s puppet.”

Majority owner, co-founder and Swedish billionaire Torbjörn Törnqvist is selling all his Gunvor holdings, with Americas head Gary Pedersen to become Gunvor’s CEO. A group of current employees are slated to acquire the firm, according to the company’s Monday announcement.

The insider buyout was conceived in 2022 during an “all-hands retreat in Morocco,” though the changes come mere weeks after the Treasury Department sharply criticized Gunvor and threatened to block its operations on Nov. 6 following reports the firm would buy assets from a major Russian ⚡Energy company for $22 billion. Soon after the Treasury’s warning, Gunvor reproached the Trump administration’s characterization and said in an X post that it was dropping its bid