More than 50 major U.S. oil and gas companies hauled in over $130 billion in profits in six months of the Iran war, while regular Americans pay $4.20 a gallon at the pump and diesel prices have exploded past $6 — a direct transfer of wealth from the working class to the boardrooms of ExxonMobil and Chevron.

The numbers are staggering. Between April and September, U.S. oil and gas companies nearly tripled their profits compared to the same period last year, when they earned just $47 billion, according to a New York Times analysis cited by the New York Post. The five largest Western oil companies — ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Shell, and TotalEnergies — alone posted $56.3 billion in adjusted third-quarter net income, all beating Wall Street forecasts.

The profit center isn't drilling. It's refining. ExxonMobil's refining business posted a record $9.05 billion in third-quarter profit — nearly five times what it earned a year earlier, per Bloomberg. Chevron's downstream operations quadrupled to $4.93 billion. Fox Business noted that ExxonMobil pulled more revenue from refining than from exploration for the first time in at least six years. The Iran war and Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries have knocked roughly 10% of global fuel-making capacity offline, and the companies still standing are cashing in on the shortage.

Who pays? You do. AAA data shows regular gasoline averaged $4.20 a gallon nationally on Friday, up from $2.98 before the war began Feb. 28. Diesel hit a record $6.52 a gallon in September — up 72% from prewar levels. The Bureau of Labor Statistics confirms the squeeze: gas prices surged 34.2% year-over-year, with monthly spikes as high as 21.2% in the war's early weeks. Every diesel increase gets baked into the cost of groceries and goods hauled by truck across the country.

President Trump sounded like a populist in August, singling out ExxonMobil and Chevron. "When you look at one company where they made 12 times what they made the year before, they ought to give some of that back to the public," he told reporters. "And they better cut the retail price, the consumer price." But by last weekend, the New York Post reported, Trump was at a rally in Georgia touting the industry's booming profits. So much for accountability.

Meanwhile, oil traders are pricing in more war. Al-Monitor reported that Brent crude rose 3% to $114.12 a barrel on Friday — on track for a fourth consecutive monthly gain of nearly 14% — as markets brace for escalation after the midterm elections. A reported tanker attack in the Strait of Hormuz added more upward pressure. BP just posted its highest quarterly profit in 18 years: $8.46 billion, quadruple the year-earlier figure.

Oil shipments through the Persian Gulf have reportedly surpassed prewar levels, according to the Wall Street Journal. So supply is recovering — but the savings aren't reaching the pump. MarketWatch co-founder Derek Reisfield told the Post there is "no short-term fix" because of longstanding constraints on U.S. refining capacity.

The war machine runs on fuel, and Big Oil runs on the war. The only question left is who in Washington is willing to stop both.