“When you’re the CEO of a corporation, your job is to advance the interest of the corporation and the shareholder,” said Eric Edelman, a former ambassador who also held posts in the defense and state departments, “and that might not be your same view when you are representing the United States.”
Edelman, who advised Mitt Romney during Romney’s 2012 presidential run, spoke for many in the foreign policy establishment when he wondered aloud whether Tillerson will be able to think outside the parameters that guided him at Exxon. “There are things that are troubling that need to be explored,” he said.