From The Center Square

By Tom Joyce

“BlackRock is playing a game of deceit. Fink and his team are trying to say all the right things to conservatives while quietly doubling down on their activist agenda behind the scenes.”

A group of 26 financial officers from 21 states sent letters to 18 major financial institutions this week, warning them to abandon environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices if they wish to continue doing business with their states.

The letters said ESG has undermined the traditional fiduciary duty that firms owe their clients, focusing solely on financial return, and instead prioritizes advancing political agendas.

“Fiduciary duty has long been a critical safeguard that facilitated efficient capital allocation grounded in financial merit rather than political ideology,” the letter said. “But that clarity is being diluted under the banner of so-called ‘long-term risk mitigation,’ where speculative assumptions about the future, like climate change catastrophe, are used to justify ideological conclusions today.”

Signers include state treasurers, auditors, and comptrollers from states like Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Utah. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and 17 other financial leaders were recipients of the joint letter. Others include executives from Vanguard, Fidelity, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and State Street.

The letter said that while some firms have started leaving global climate coalitions and reducing ESG-related proxy votes, the state financial officers want “durable assurances” that fiduciary duty, not politics, drives investment decisions.

“While some firms have recently taken encouraging steps, such as withdrawing from global climate coalitions and scaling back ESG rhetoric and proxy votes, and some states have permitted incremental reintegration, more work must be done,” the letter said. “The number one issue is a recommitment to the foundational principles of fiduciary duty, loyalty, objectivity, and financial focus.”

The move comes after Texas removed BlackRock from its blacklist earlier this month and resumed investing with the firm – a move that drew criticism from others still pushing back against ESG. The letter indicates that many states won’t follow suit.

“Financial institutions wishing to compete for our states’ business should provide durable assurances that their practices align with these principles,” the letter said. “Our responsibility is to ensure public assets are managed in the best financial interest of beneficiaries and taxpayers.”

O.J. Oleka, president of the State Financial Officers Foundation, said the states are right to demand proof that ESG is no longer a factor in investing for these companies.

“Actions always speak louder than words. Requiring America’s financial giants to prove their independence from woke ideology with concrete steps before doing business with a state’s dollars is fully necessary and just makes sense,” Oleka said. “These financial officers are doing the right thing for their states and the taxpayers whose financial security they’ve been entrusted to protect.”

Will Hild, executive director of Consumers’ Research, also praised the letter.

“BlackRock is playing a game of deceit,” Hild said. “Fink and his team are trying to say all the right things to conservatives while quietly doubling down on their activist agenda behind the scenes.”

MxM News

Quick Hit:

At an AI summit in Washington on Wednesday, President Donald Trump signed three executive orders aimed at making the U.S. an “AI export powerhouse” while purging federally funded artificial intelligence models of what he called “woke Marxist lunacy.”

Key Details:

• During remarks at the “Winning the Race” summit, Trump declared: “Once and for all, we are getting rid of woke. Is that OK?” drawing loud applause. He slammed DEI as “toxic ideology” that distorts AI outputs and pledged to eliminate it from all AI tools funded by the federal government.
• One order requires that federally funded AI models be politically neutral, explicitly banning ideological components such as DEI, critical race theory, and so-called unconscious bias. The move pressures developers seeking government contracts to strip their models of left-leaning programming.
• The other orders speed up permitting for AI infrastructure and promote U.S. exports of AI tools. Trump said the initiative is essential to counter China’s ambitions in the sector and called on American companies to “put America first” in the global AI race.

President Trump signs three executive orders on AI:

— Accelerating permitting to build data center infrastructure
— Promoting the export of American AI models abroad
— Protecting Americans from woke AI models driven by Radical Left ideology at the expense of accuracy pic.twitter.com/nxxWi36isL

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 23, 2025

Diving Deeper:

President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed three sweeping executive orders focused on reshaping the U.S. approach to artificial intelligence, taking aim at what he described as entrenched liberal bias in the industry and ramping up efforts to dominate the global AI landscape.

Speaking from the “Winning the Race” summit in Washington, Trump mocked left-wing influence in AI, decrying what he called “woke Marxist lunacy” embedded in today’s leading models. “Once and for all, we are getting rid of woke. Is that OK?” he said to a room of industry leaders gathered at the Mellon Auditorium. The crowd responded with loud applause.

One of the executive orders, titled Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government, directs that any company receiving federal funding for artificial intelligence must develop politically neutral systems that are free from “ideological dogmas such as DEI.” The order explicitly targets concepts like critical race theory, systemic racism, transgenderism, intersectionality, and unconscious bias—labeling them as distortions of factual output.

Trump also blasted the Biden administration for previously mandating “toxic diversity, equity, and inclusion ideology” as the framework for federal AI development. “So you immediately knew that was the end of your development,” he said, drawing laughs from the crowd.

The order emphasizes that the government “should be hesitant to regulate” private-sector AI models but makes clear that public procurement must be grounded in “truthfulness and accuracy” rather than political goals.

Trump also signed a second order aimed at reducing permitting delays for data centers and scaling back environmental rules that could slow construction. These facilities, which consume vast amounts of energy and water, have drawn criticism from environmental groups and resistance from local communities. The order aligns with calls from major tech companies to ease restrictions on building out AI infrastructure.

A third order prioritizes expanding U.S. AI exports and positions America as a global leader in the emerging sector. The moves accompany the rollout of a 24-page “AI action plan” from the White House, designed to replace Biden-era rules and accelerate AI development by cutting “red tape and onerous regulation.”

“Winning this competition will be a test of our capacities unlike anything since the dawn of the space age,” Trump said. “We need U.S. technology companies to be all-in for America. We want you to put America first.”

He even joked about renaming the technology altogether, saying, “I don’t even like the name… It’s not artificial. It’s genius.”

The Trump administration’s directives come as concerns grow on the right over political bias in AI, especially in generative tools like chatbots and image generators. Elon Musk, a vocal critic of “woke” AI, has pledged to build a politically neutral alternative through his xAI company. His chatbot, Grok, has been accused of promoting antisemitic and white supremacist content in recent months, including pro-Nazi posts and conspiracy theories—leading to internal corrections.