Participant seen holding a sign outside BlackRock headquarters in Manhattan, where their annual shareholders meeting took place, May 25, 2022.
Erik Mcgregor | Lightrocket | Getty Images
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink on Thursday accused two Republican presidential contenders of lying about him during their fourth debate Wednesday night in Alabama.
There, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy took turns name checking the billionaire asset manager and the firm he runs.
Fink was falsely accused of endorsing their challenger, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. In reality, he was among a group of business leaders who met with Haley last month in New York.
“I haven’t endorsed any candidate for president this year. I’ve met with at least five of the candidates in this campaign cycle,” Fink wrote on his LinkedIn page.
BlackRock took even more fire from DeSantis and Ramaswamy.
“Larry Fink the king of the woke industrial complex, the ESG movement, the CEO of Blackrock, the most powerful company in the world, now supporting Nikki Haley,” Ramaswamy claimed early in the debate.
“I took $2 billion away from BlackRock,” as governor of Florida, DeSantis claimed.
In his post Thursday, Fink very thinly shielded their identities.
“One candidate last night claimed that BlackRock was somehow deterring American energy companies from drilling for oil,” Fink said, a clear reference to Ramaswamy, who repeated a conspiracy theory about global energy markets.
“Another candidate accused BlackRock of pursuing an ideological agenda,” wrote Fink, an obvious reference to DeSantis.
For Fink, it marked a rare public rebuke of two candidates vying for a job that would afford either of them immense power if he were elected.
Fink and BlackRock have been under scrutiny for years by both Republicans and Democrats.
Republicans frequently criticize BlackRock’s environmental, social and governance investment strategies, claiming they disguise a far-left agenda bent on dismantling the American oil and gas industry.
“Now I know why they call this the political silly season,” wrote Fink.
“America needs fewer Pinocchios and more Honest Abes,” he added.