Tillerson owns stock in Exxon Mobil competitors

Rex Tillerson, the former Exxon CEO picked by President-elect Donald Trump to be the next secretary of state, owns stock in some of his old competitors and a slew of other companies with operations around the world.
Tillerson's holdings include shares of Chevron Corp., Royal Dutch Shell, Apple Inc. And General Electric Co. He disclosed them in a filing with the federal Office of Government Ethics.
The disclosure form only requires Tillerson to list values of his investments within dollar-amount ranges.
For example, he listed Chevron and Phillips 66 stock worth between USD 15,001 and USD 50,000 each. His Apple stock could be worth up to USD 300,000.

Those stakes are small in comparison with his Exxon Mobil Corp. Nest egg. Exxon disclosed this week that it will cash out Tillerson's unvested shares in the company for about USD 180 million at current prices. He has pledged to sell 611,000 shares he already owns, worth about USD 55 million, and will get about USD 70 million from Exxon retirement plans.
Tillerson also listed real estate holdings including the Texas horse ranch, valued at between USD 5 million and USD 25 million, that he owns with his wife, and many municipal bonds issued by Texas cities. He listed no liabilities in the filing, which ran for 38 pages.

Tillerson appears to be following the practice of some previous wealthy cabinet nominees who cashed out their stock holdings to avoid the potential or appearance that personal financial considerations might influence their decisions in government.