R.I.P.

Controversial Oil Magnate T. Boone Pickens Dies at 91

Boone shook up the oil industry and was known for his outsized personality.

Oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens, known for his outsized personality and business smarts, died Wednesday at his home in Dallas at the age of 91. A spokesman for Pickens confirmed his death and said he had suffered a series of strokes in 2017 and was hospitalized after a “Texas-sized fall” in July. The New York Times called Pickens a “corporate raider, defender of shareholder rights, unlikely environmentalist, no-holds-barred polemicist for political conservatism, and controversial philanthropist.” The businessman shook up the oil industry in the 1980s when he threatened to take over big oil companies until they bought back his shares at elevated prices, fancying himself a Robin Hood that wanted to shake up board rooms and enrich ordinary shareholders that he called “the neglected minority.”