A participant is seen holding a sign outside BlackRock headquarters in Manhattan, where their annual shareholders meeting was held, May 25, 2022.
Erik McGregor | Lightrocket | Getty Images
Black stone CEO Larry Fink on Thursday accused the 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 have exchanged names in checking the billionaire asset manager and the company he runs.
Fink was falsely accused of endorsing his challenger, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. In fact, he was among a group of business leaders who met with Haley last month in New York.
“I have not endorsed any candidate for president this year. I have met at least five of the candidates in this campaign cycle,” Fink wrote in his LinkedIn page.
BlackRock took 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, is now supporting Nikki Haley,” Ramaswamy said early in the debate.
“I took $2 billion from BlackRock,” as governor of Florida, DeSantis said.
In his post Thursday, Fink very thinly guards their identities.
“A candidate last night said that BlackRock is somehow preventing American energy companies from drilling for oil,” said Fink, an obvious reference to Ramaswamy, who repeated a conspiracy theory about the global energy market.
“Another candidate accused BlackRock of pursuing an ideological agenda,” Fink wrote, a clear reference to DeSantis.
For Fink, it marked a rare public rebuke of two candidates vying for a job that would give either of them enormous power if elected.
Fink and BlackRock have been under scrutiny for years by both Republicans and Democrats.
Republicans have often criticized BlackRock’s environmental, social and governance investment strategies, saying they espouse a far-left agenda bent on dismantling America’s oil and gas industry.
“Now I know why they call it political bullshit,” Fink wrote.
“America needs fewer Pinocchios and more Honest Abes,” he added.
