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It’s the comeback story no one asked for – the resurrection of a brand so toxic that it remains synonymous with corporate fraud more than two decades after its collapse. That’s right, folks: Enron is back. But only somehow.

TL;DR: A T-shirt manufacturing company has purchased the Enron brand and is apparently trying to sell merchandise on behalf of the man behind the satirical conspiracy theory “Birds Aren’t Real.”

No, that’s not a bit. Here is the longer version:

On Monday, the 23rd anniversary of Enron’s bankruptcy filing, rumors spread that the former Texas energy giant had risen from the dead. A slick new website, enron.com, seemed to show that the company had done some serious research and inexplicably re-registered under its original trademark. As a modern energy company, it will be dedicated to “solving the global energy crisis,” the press release said.

The site is packed with art and innocuous corporate platitudes that give it credibility. There’s a link to job listings, employee testimonials, and even a one-minute video called “I am Enron,” a movie trailer-like mashup of time-lapse cityscapes, rockets launching into space, a ballerina twirling on the beach—a Jumble of images and baritone voiceover are so corny almost credible.

But the website and its associated social media accounts, like Enron’s financial statements, are largely fiction. However, unlike the Enron scandal, this scandal appears to be little more than performance art aimed at selling branded hoodies.

Publicly available documents show that an Akansas-based LLC called The College Company purchased the Enron brand in 2020 for $275.

The co-founder of this company is Connor Gaydos, who along with Peter McIndoe created “Birds Aren’t Real,” a bogus conspiracy theory that claims the government has replaced all birds with replica drones that spy on Americans. Gaydos and McIndoe had a good run with the bird role, which started with a single joke and turned into a Gen Z-driven movement… sort of.

You could call it a high-level commentary on social media’s ability to distort reality and infect people with false ideas about the world. Or you could call it a harmless joke that sold a lot of t-shirts.

This brings us back to the Enron move.

When I reached out to Enron’s press email listed on the website, I received a response a few minutes later – not from an Enron representative, but from a media strategist at New York communications firm Stu Loeser & Co. The strategist said: “We will have more to share soon,” but declined to comment beyond the statement posted on Enron’s website. An email to Stu Loeser & Co requesting more information about the firm’s ties to this…whatever this is…went unanswered.

Gaydos did not respond to an email seeking comment. McIndoe could not immediately be reached for comment.

In its statement, which was curiously posted as an image file on Enron’s website, the company lays out its “bold new vision” for solving the world’s energy problems. Among its “core pillars” is a commitment to “permissionless innovation,” also known as crypto – a reference that sparked some speculation online that the new “Enron” would launch some kind of digital token.

An Enron-branded To show you more soon.”

So what’s going on?

The main page of Enron’s website features a countdown clock that, as of Monday afternoon, indicated that 7 days and 17 hours remained until Enron “unveils something very special.”

In the meantime, you can head over to the site’s Company Store page to check out a selection of Enron-branded hoodies ($118 before taxes and shipping), puffer vests ($89), t-shirts ($40), baseball caps ($40 ) and hats ($30) to browse ) and water bottles with the slogan “You have great energy.”