Early this year, it seemed all but certain that Citgo Petroleum—the Houston oil refiner familiar to American drivers, but little known as a Venezuelan subsidiary—was about to fall into the hands of a U.S. activist hedge fund.
In November 2025, a Delaware federal judge ordered the sale of the company to Elliott Management and its affiliate startup, Amber Energy. The court ruled that Citgo could be held liable for the Venezuelan government’s debts, and approved a sale that would send $9 billion to pay off a small number of Venezuela’s numerous creditors. All that was needed to close the sale was a green light from the Trump administration, at which point Citgo and its U.S. refineries would come under American…