BlackRock: Masters of the Universe

BlackRock: Masters of the Universe

Alex Newman

The financial monolith known as BlackRock has an estimated $10 trillion under management and is using its clout to change the world — but not for the better. ...

Behind the scenes, quietly, there is a vast power responsible for pushing all this “woke” corporate fanaticism. It has a name: BlackRock. The world’s largest asset manager, the corporate giant has an estimated $10 trillion under management. For perspective, that is more than the gross domestic product (GDP) of every country on the planet except the United States and Communist China. When the overlord of it all orders lesser mortals running Fortune 500 companies to jump in his annual “letter to CEOs,” business leaders around the world stand at attention and ask, “How high, sir?”

Journalist Matt Taibbi famously referred to Goldman Sachs in a 2010 Rolling Stonearticle as a “great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” But as the largest stakeholder in the great vampire squid from hell, BlackRock, while less well known than its diabolical cephalopod minion, is now orders of magnitude more important in both business and politics. It is the Grand Poohbah of all the vampire squids, to borrow Taibbi’s language.   

The power of this corporate leviathan is unfathomable. It owns more than five percent of most S&P 500 companies, according to CNBC. And its tentacles extend to every corner of the global economy. In fact, along with State Street and Vanguard, BlackRock is among the largest stakeholders in most of the major companies you can name. It frequently is the largest stakeholder in companies that compete against each other, too. 

In a three-part exposé of the financial monolith, independent journalist James Corbett of the Corbett Report begins with a thought experiment. In his scenario, you start by shopping at Walmart, where BlackRock is one of the top stakeholders. Then you buy some Coke, another company in which BlackRock dominates. Then you get your Moderna shot — again BlackRock is there with about a seven-percent stake. Next you fill up at Exxon, and again, BlackRock is there. Finally, frustrated, you decide to lock yourself in your house and do your shopping on Amazon, and again, BlackRock owns one of the largest stakes. 

Once it buys these huge positions, BlackRock makes clear that the firm will go woke. Worst of all, perhaps, this evil imposed on companies is being advanced with yourmoney. Despite the protests of investors, political leaders, and even institutions with massive amounts of money invested with BlackRock, the firm dutifully votes the shares that its clients technically own to promote the “woke” agenda. Indeed, the threat to board members who resist that they will be ousted from their lucrative posts looms large over corporate board meetings everywhere. 

BlackRock Chairman and CEO Larry Fink has bragged repeatedly about what he is doing with your money. “Behaviors are going to have to change, and this is one thing that we are asking companies,” Fink declared during a 2017 discussion hosted by The New York Times. “You have to force behaviors, and at BlackRock, we are forcing behaviors.” It is true; BlackRock is, in fact, forcing behaviors on companies, as well as on the people who work in those companies and even consumers.

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