BlackRock is the largest asset manager in the world and one of Wall Street's power players.
They've been injecting left-wing politics into finance.
And BlackRock made a stunning reversal that has the woke mob fuming.
Red States Forced Wall Street's Hand With Lawsuits and Divestments
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton isn't messing around anymore.
He's leading 11 Republican-led states in a federal lawsuit accusing BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street of rigging the coal market through their ESG crusade.¹
The lawsuit claims these asset managers bought up massive stakes in coal companies — more than 30% of Peabody Energy and Arch Resources — then used their power to strangle production and jack up your electricity bills.²
Florida pulled $2 billion from BlackRock's management over ESG policies.³
Texas yanked $8.5 billion.⁴
That's not protest money — that's "we're done with your woke garbage" money.
These weren't idle threats from red state treasurers.
A federal judge just let the case proceed after BlackRock tried to get it thrown out.⁵
The Trump Administration's Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice piled on in May, filing a joint statement supporting the states' antitrust case.⁶
"Doing so protects Americans from anticompetitive behavior that reduces the production of domestic energy, raises energy prices for consumers and businesses," the agencies stated.⁶
BlackRock called the lawsuit "baseless" but the numbers tell a different story.⁷
The Committee to Unleash Prosperity just released its 2025 scorecard grading how 40 major investment firms vote on ESG shareholder proposals.⁸
BlackRock rocketed from a C grade in 2023 to an A in 2025.⁸
State Street jumped from a D to a B.⁸
JPMorgan, T. Rowe Price, and Goldman Sachs all earned A grades for finally putting profits over politics.⁸
The report examined 50 "extreme ESG-oriented resolutions" — racial quotas, net-zero mandates, environmental audits, political spending reviews.⁸
BlackRock voted against these proposals at record rates after years of being their biggest cheerleader.
The same company that previously demanded boards hit 30% "diverse" directors quietly scrubbed that language from its guidelines.⁸
Investors Figured Out ESG Funds Are Money Losers
Here's what BlackRock didn't want you to know — ESG funds vastly underperform the market.
The median sustainable large-blend equity fund gained 20.8% in 2023 while conventional funds notched 23.9%.⁹
That's a 3-percentage-point gap that comes straight out of your retirement account.
In 2022, ESG funds lost 18% compared to 15.8% for non-ESG funds.¹⁰
Active ESG equity funds got absolutely crushed — the average fund underperformed its benchmark by 6.16% in 2023.¹¹
Investors aren't stupid.
U.S. ESG funds hemorrhaged $19.6 billion in withdrawals in 2024 after bleeding $13 billion in 2023.⁸
That's $32.6 billion in two years running for the exits.
BlackRock's support for environmental and social proposals collapsed from over 40% in 2021 to less than 2% in 2025.¹²
The company voted for only seven out of 358 environmental and social proposals during the most recent proxy season.¹²
Translation: BlackRock saw the writing on the wall and ran as fast as possible from its own terrible ideas.
The Federal Trade Commission just opened an antitrust investigation into proxy advisers Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services.⁸
These are the shadowy firms that pushed emissions goals and diversity targets while claiming to represent shareholder interests.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon ripped into them as having "undue influence" and said their recommendations violate the duty to maximize shareholder value.⁸
He went nuclear in March 2025, calling ISS and Glass Lewis "incompetent" and arguing they're "driving companies out of the public market."¹³
"Anyone who gives them money — shame on you," Dimon said.¹³
The firms "should be gone and dead and done with."¹³
That's the CEO of America's biggest bank telling the investment world these woke advisers are poison.
Trump Administration and Red States Killed ESG for Good
The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board nailed it when they wrote that "smart CEOs keep their eyes on the North Star of maximizing returns to shareholders, which is the best way to help customers, employees and the larger society."⁸
That used to be common sense before radical activists hijacked corporate boardrooms.
Companies wasted billions chasing carbon neutrality schemes that destroyed returns.
A Center Square investigation found California's public employee retirement system lost 71% of its $468 million investment in a clean energy private equity fund.⁸
That's real workers' retirement money torched to satisfy the climate cult.
Red state lawmakers saw through the scam and fought back hard.
Texas passed legislation prohibiting state pension funds from investing in any company that boycotts energy companies.⁴
Florida's chief financial officer banned ESG investing in state deferred compensation plans — $5.1 billion worth.³
Tennessee, Alabama, Indiana, Oklahoma, Montana and more than a dozen other states followed with similar laws targeting woke investment practices.¹⁴
The Trump Administration made it clear ESG's days were numbered the moment he took office.
Republican attorneys general from multiple states have been investigating whether BlackRock and other asset managers violated fiduciary duties by prioritizing political goals over returns.
The Committee to Unleash Prosperity says many investors remain unaware their shares are being voted on for political reasons rather than financial performance.⁸
That's the dirty secret Wall Street tried to hide — they were using your retirement savings to fund a radical social agenda without asking permission.
BlackRock's dramatic reversal proves these firms knew all along ESG investing was killing returns.
They just didn't care until Trump won, red state treasurers started pulling billions in assets, and ordinary investors demanded accountability.
ESG funds underperformed for years while Wall Street executives collected fat fees and virtue signaled about saving the planet.
The pushback from red states, the Trump Administration, and fed-up investors finally broke the dam.
Now even BlackRock — the world's biggest ESG cheerleader — is running away from woke investing faster than Democrats fleeing a debate on crime.
The woke experiment in corporate America isn't just failing.
It's dead.
¹ Lamar Johnson, "BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street sued by Texas, red states," ESG Dive, December 2, 2024.
² "Texas Launches Multi-State Lawsuit Accusing BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street of Using ESG Investing to Manipulate Energy Markets," ESG Today, December 2, 2024.
³ Pillsbury Law, "Florida's Response to ESG Investing," accessed November 19, 2025.
⁴ California Management Review, "Do Red and Blue States Walk Their Politicians' ESG Talk?," May 28, 2024.
⁵ ESG Today, "Texas Judge Greenlights Multi-State Lawsuit Accusing BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street," August 4, 2025.
⁶ Lamar Johnson, "FTC, DOJ weigh in on Republican states' coal antitrust case against 'Big Three' asset managers," ESG Dive, May 28, 2025.
⁷ Lamar Johnson, "BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street sued by Texas, red states," ESG Dive, December 2, 2024.
⁸ Tom Joyce, "Asset managers retreat from ESG push, report finds," The Center Square, November 19, 2025.
⁹ Yahoo Finance, "ESG funds faced their worst year on record in 2023," February 6, 2024.
¹⁰ Skadden, "ESG in 2022 and Predictions for 2023," February 2023.
¹¹ Man Group, "ESG Performance and Flows – From a Tale of Two Cities in 2023," 2024.
¹² Lamar Johnson, "BlackRock's support for environmental, social proposals dips to less than 2% in 2025," ESG Dive, September 11, 2025.
¹³ Semafor, "'Incompetent:' JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon unloads on proxy advisor ISS," March 13, 2025.
¹⁴ The Daily Economy, "The States' War on ESG," February 19, 2025.
