Florida announced it would pull $2 billion in assets out of the control of BlackRock
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was applauded for withdrawing $2 billion in assets from BlackRock, one of the world’s largest investment firms, with one commentator calling environmental, social and governance investing, also known as ESG, “an illegal leftist scam.”
Florida joined a growing list of states pushing back against the rise of ESG investing, especially by firms like BlackRock, which control trillions of dollars in assets.
“Using Florida’s cash to fund BlackRock’s social-engineering project isn’t something we signed up for,” tweeted Jimmy Patronis, Florida’s chief financial officer, Thursday.
Steve Milloy, who served on President Trump’s transition team, called it a “bad day” at BlackRock. “ESG is an illegal leftist scam for circumventing democratic processes to impose arbitrary standards on corporations to hijack them for political purposes,” he tweeted.