Rex Tillerson, the chief executive of ExxonMobil and President-elect Donald Trump‘s nominee for secretary of state, was seen Tuesday night buying groceries at a Safeway supermarket in Northwest DC. A photo taken by fellow shopper Sanho Tree, who spotted the oil-industry leader shortly after 7 PM, shows a box of cereal (possibly Raisin Bran), a bottle of milk, and a bag of peeled baby carrots, among other items.
While that looks like a relatively healthful selection, it was Tillerson’s choice of Safeway locations that got DC Twitter chuckling. The store, located a few blocks from Dupont Circle, is known as the “Soviet Safeway” for its notoriously understocked shelves and slow checkout lines.
Yup. That’s Rex Tillerson in my local Safeway shopping like a plebeian. His security guy is about 20 paces behind him. pic.twitter.com/9ptVGo8dBE
— Sanho Tree (@SanhoTree) January 4, 2017
In 2013, Tillerson was awarded the Order of Friendship by the Russian Federation, which the US government recently accused of computer espionage in order to interfere with last year’s presidential election. Tillerson received his award—the highest honor given to any non-Russian—from President Vladimir Putin, who before entering politics spent 26 years in the KGB, the main security agency of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Benjamin Freed joined Washingtonian in August 2013 and covers politics, business, and media. He was previously the editor of DCist and has also written for Washington City Paper, the New York Times, the New Republic, Slate, and BuzzFeed. He lives in Adams Morgan.
