exxon fresh out of the university of texas in 75 starting as a production engineer. he worked his way up the ranks and became ceo and chairman in 2006 and has amassed a fortune, estimated to be over $240 million. according to executive data provider equalar. tillerson has no experience in the public sector but his work as taken him all over the world and he s forged close ties to russia. this is a guy who has business relationships in every continent in the entire world. reporter: tillerson received the order of friendship award from putin in 2013. he describes his nearly two decade-long relationship with the russian president as very close. he understands i m a businessman. i ve invested a lot of money our company has invested a lot of money in russia, vcr very successfully. his business acue men and
stay tuned. even before making it official, critics are expressing outrage. particularly over tillerson s relationship with russia. florida senator marco rubio tweeting, being a friend of vladimir is not an attribute i m hoping for from a secretary of state. it s worth noting in 2011, exxon signed a deal with russian oil giant whose larger shareholder is the russian government. soon after the signing, putin awarded tillerson the order of friendship. how close are putin and tillerson? rachel crane takes a closer look. when i was a brand new engineer with exxon in 1975. reporter: he runs one of the world s biggest companies, rex tillerson, ceo of exxon mobil has spent his entire career at the oil giant. we are the largest american oil company. reporter: tillerson joined
governments, foreign governments and that raises things to a much higher level and the fact they hacked and may have tried to influence an election is even more serious still. trump said he dunn trust the reporting on russia s involvement or the sources providing the intelligence. if you read the stories, the various stories, they are disputing. certain groups don t necessarily agree. personally, it could be russia. i don t think it is but who knows? i don t know either. they don t know and i don t know. meantime back at transition headquarters, sources say that donald trump is closer to choosing his secretary of state and the likely pick is rex tillerson. trump tweeted about him this morning, writing whether i choose him or not for state, rex tillerson is a world class player dealmaker.
extensive work overseas has caught the attention and gained the respect of trump. in his case he is more than a business executive. he is a world-class player. to me, a great advantage is he knows many of the mayeplayers a knows them well. under tillerson s leadership, the oil softened its stand on climate change, publicly acknowledging its existence and risks. i m not disputing that increasing co2 emission unless the atmosphere will have an impact. it will have a warming impact. how large it is what is hard for anyone to predict. reporter: tillerson, who is 64, is expected to retire as ceo of exxon mobil when he turns 65 in march. the mandatory retirement age at the company. rachel crane, cnn, new york. let s chat about this with cnn senior law enforcement analyst tom fuentes and former
sony attack, allegations against china where members of chinese military were charged with hacking in to our systems, the hacking in to opm, releasing thousands of personal files belonging to current and past government employees. so this has been basically a drum beat of steady hacks in to u.s. sensitive systems. we haven t heard a lot being mentioned about what was being done, what kind of sanctions and retaliation. now all of a sudden we are going to do something and it s after the election. we have to ask about rex tillerson. sources say he is the front runner for secretary of state. he has some overseas experience. mostly in a business capacity. he is not really a diplomatic. are you comfortable with his closeness with russia if he becomes secretary of state? well, the question when we say closeness, yes, they do deals. he is operating that country in