Enron‘s Crazy Power Trading Strategies That Led to the California Energy Crisis

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Enron engaged in various trading strategies in the California energy market, including Death Star, Fat Boy, Get Shorty, and Ricochet. Death Star involved filing an imaginary transmission schedule to get paid for congestion alleviation that didn't really exist. Fat Boy was a scheme where Enron reflected demand that wasn't actually there, leading to excess electricity production that could be profited from. Get Shorty involved selling power as reserves that Enron didn't have, with the expectation of buying it later at a lower price. Ricochet involved exporting power out of California and bringing it back at much higher prices. Enron also encouraged generation plants to shut down for maintenance, causing blackouts and price spikes. These manipulative strategies had a far-reaching impact, leading to deaths, power deprivation, and the recall of the California Governor.

The FTX fraud has dominated headlines now for weeks, during which we’ve debated if and how Acquired could uniquely add to the conversation. Then we realized there was an angle so perfect that we had to drop everything and enter Acquired research overdrive: Enron. Travel back with us to the granddaddy fraud of them all, 2001’s then-largest bankruptcy in US history and the impetus for the famous Sarbanes-Oxley Act. So much of Enron’s history parallels FTX that the uncanniness is almost unbelievable — right down to the same CEO running the two bankruptcies. Sit back and enjoy this crazy tale of villainy, greed, and the nature of humans and money. Maybe just don’t take notes on this one…

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