This article originally appeared on Business Insider.
An 85-year-old oil tycoon is cashing out — but he appeared solemn in an interview about selling his business.
Autry Stephens sold his company, Endeavor Energy Resources, to Diamondback Energy earlier this week. The $26 billion cash-and-stock deal would make him the richest oil tycoon in the US, Bloomberg reported.
But the taciturn Stephens appeared reluctant to leave the company he founded in 1979, telling The Wall Street Journal he made the decision largely because of a cancer diagnosis.
“I’ll miss the people there,” he told the Journal in a recent interview. “It was kind of a little family.”
Stephens had long resisted outside efforts
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