Trump’s Iran War Brings On Record Oil Company Profits

The US oil industry has earned almost $130 billion in profits since the US and Israel began bombing Iran in February. The same companies, according to the New York Times, earned less than $47 billion over the same span of 2025, when oil was comparatively cheap. 

Shipping and insurance costs have spiked thanks to the war, allowing oil companies to spike their prices. ExxonMobil and Chevron, the nation’s two largest fossil fuel corporations, saw profits surge. According to quarterly earnings reports released on Friday, ExxonMobil’s profits doubled over the same period last year, while Chevron’s grew by 180 percent. BP, another large oil company, reported its profits reached an 18-year high. 

Shareholders are making money. President Donald Trump’s personal wealth in oil and gas stocks grew as much as $35.8 million this year, according to a report this week from congressional Democrats. 

Americans, meanwhile, are paying the price—the median US household has spent $856 more at the gas pump than they otherwise would have since the war started. 

The national average price of gasoline during the third quarter of 2026 was $4.12 a gallon, according to AAA—up 96 cents from a year ago and the highest ever quarterly price. 

On the campaign trail, Trump has repeatedly attempted to assure Americans that this is a good thing: “The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in March, just one month into the war. Seven months later, his pitch hasn’t changed. 

“Our country is making hundreds of billions of dollars because of what’s happened in the Middle East, because they’re coming to Texas, and they’re coming to Oklahoma, and they’re coming to Louisiana and they’re taking that oil,” he said at an October 24 campaign event in Georgia.

“I don’t give a damn, I’m going to say it—we’re making a freaking fortune.”