Energy CEO Fights Climate Science. And LinkedIn. North Face, Too.

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In a video uploaded to LinkedIn last month, Liberty Energy Inc. pointing triangle Chief Executive Chris Wright was characteristically blunt: “There is no climate crisis, and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition either,” he said.

The provocative 12-minute video, which challenges established science and the publicly stated views of other energy-industry executives, marked his latest combative defense of fossil fuels. Those views have made him a darling of industry panels and of the conservative speaking circuit.

Taking to LinkedIn, he said, was a way for him to broaden his audience.

Then LinkedIn took the post down.

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Mr. Wright appealed LinkedIn’s decision, and the platform replied that the video violated its policy on spam and scams. The next day, LinkedIn informed Mr. Wright that it had concluded that his post didn’t actually go against its policies, and that it had restored the video.

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Social-media companies in recent years have adopted a host of policies aimed at setting guidelines for what speech is acceptable on hot-button topics including election results and Covid-19 vaccinations. Those policies were enacted in response to a proliferation of hate speech and false content that at times have gone viral when boosted by platform algorithms, but the way the rules are enforced has often been controversial.

Some Republican lawmakers are calling for hearings this year to explore what they say is a pattern of tech companies cracking down on conservative speech.

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Mr. Wright said he doesn’t dispute the existence of climate change. Rather, he said, he believes that the dialogue around climate has become alarmist, that the need to quickly pivot away from fossil fuels is overstated and that public policies favoring renewables result in higher energy prices.

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Many large energy companies are taking steps toward a long-term transition away from fossil fuels, albeit not as aggressively as critics say will be effective. They have to thread a needle between heeding large investors and governments’ calls to shrink their fossil fuels business, and pleasing others who prefer they focus on their oil-and-gas assets and the returns these can generate.

Most public drillers have adopted emissions-reduction targets across their operations, and a handful have set goals to be carbon neutral by 2050. Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips and Occidental Petroleum Corp. have said they would spend billions of dollars developing carbon-free fuels such as hydrogen, as well as technologies such as carbon capture.

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Some CEOs have grown more vocal in their defense of fossil fuels, pointing to the fact that oil and gas still enable most of modern life. Oil and gas are also the primary drivers of profits at their companies. Steven Kean, CEO of pipeline company Kinder Morgan Inc., said at an investor conference last week that hydrocarbons provide “the food we eat, the shelter, the clothing that we wear.”

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After the clothing brand North Face declined to sell company-branded jackets to one of Liberty’s competitors in 2020, Mr. Wright rented billboards in and around Denver that said, “That North Face Puffer looks great on you. And it was made from fossil fuels.”

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Mr. Wright, whose compensation in 2021 was $4.6 million, said executives are by nature a cautious class, but he thinks that is a mistake in regards to climate issues.

“They want to be respected business leaders. They don’t want to be told they’re lying, or [that] they’re spreading misinformation,” Mr. Wright said. “I think we should speak more honestly, and less and less appeasement-oriented.”

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