Corporate bias watchdog reveals extent of Fortune 10 companies' ideological capture

The 1792 Exchange, a corporate bias watchdog seeking to restore political neutrality in the boardroom and to altogether combat woke capital, has released another damning batch of insights into the extent of the ideological capture at America's Fortune 10 companies.

The watchdog's recent analysis — critical additions to a growing database that tracks the political preferences of board members and leaders inside Fortune 250 companies' C-suites — indicates that executives from America's top 10 companies, taken in aggregate, direct the super-majority of their political giving to Democrats. The 1792 Exchange further highlighted various public remarks suggestive of executives' prioritization of left-wing activism in the name of so-called stakeholders over results and returns for those shareholders who have everything on the line.

The 1792 Exchange indicated that executives from Fortune 10 companies give 77% of their political donations to Democrats and only 23% to Republicans. The political bias is especially clear at Amazon, Apple, and Alphabet, where the ratio of political giving to Democrats over Republicans apparently exceeds 9:1. Of the three corporate behemoths, 97%, 97%, and 95% of political donations went to Democrats, respectively.

Two outliers among the Fortune 10 in this regard are Chevron and Walmart, where 81% and 69% of political donations from executives and board members went to Republicans.

Matt Buckham, vice president for programs at the 1792 Exchange, told Blaze News, "What we see is instead of having a fair representation of viewpoints, instead of having a clear understanding that we are serving the shareholder, we see a massive tilt of 'We favor one party’s political opinions, one party’s ideas, one party’s ideology.'"

Buckham suggested that these executives should alternatively be focused on the business — on "doing what's good for the shareholder, what's good for the customer, and making the best product or service possible. Activism is the complete opposite of that."

"We don't want them to take harmful, left-wing, Democratic activist viewpoints and ideologies and incorporate them in a business with the pretense that it's helping the shareholders," continued Buckham. "We're trying to help companies avoid another Bud Light moment."

In an apparent effort to signal its woke alignment, Bud Light collaborated last year with transvestite influencer Dylan Mulvaney, celebrating his supposed "365 Days of Girlhood." The leftist activism hurt the company and shareholders by extension.

A boycott reacting to the company's apparent mockery of women successfully took Bud Light out of the ranking of America's list of top 10 beers, cost Anheuser-Busch tens of billions in market value, and prompted a purge of corporate employees. According to the Harvard Business Review, Bud Light's sales decline persisted for around eight months.

It is unclear whether the executives at America's Fortune 10 companies — Walmart, Amazon, ExxonMobil, Apple, UnitedHealth Group, CVS, Berkshire Hathaway, Alphabet, McKesson, and Chevron — have taken the Bud Light lesson to heart. It is clear, however, that many are predisposed to a potentially costly leftward drift.

Referencing public statements made by company directors in recent months and years, the 1792 Exchange report indicated that ESG and DEI are baked into executives' conversations and considerations.

The report highlighted, for instance, former PepsiCo. CEO and current Amazon Audit Committee chairman Indra Nooyi's sense that discriminatory hiring policies are the way forward.

"You have to put some quotas and numbers in place to get the appropriate critical mass of diverse people in," Nooyi is quoted as saying at a 2022 leadership event in Dubai. "Don't look at quotas as something bad. It's bad if it's not in the early stages. So if it's in the early stages, start with a quota. Insist that the numbers get to 25[-]30% diverse people."

"[Inclusion] starts with numbers and then becomes a mindset," continued Nooyi.

Nooyi is evidently not the only race obsessive with priorities besides profitability at Amazon.

Andy Jassy, the company's president and CEO, reportedly said, "If you knew what a lot of the senior leaders at Amazon spend their time on when they're not at work. They spend their time on issues of racial equality. People are very passionate about it. I spend a lot of my time on that, too, so I care a lot about it."

It appears even the directors at ExxonMobil have waved on the leftist march through corporate institutions.

The 1792 Exchange highlighted how Gregory Goff, an independent director at the oil giant since 2021, is among those who have bought into stakeholder capitalism contra shareholder capitalism.

"I would hope that a director or directors would never compromise those plans and [ESG] programs by maybe challenging how much money is being spent on the things that are the most important to do," said Goff.

Things are no better at the UnitedHealth Group where the company's so-called chief innovation officer Dame Vivian Hunt appears to be of the mindset that the company must embrace an activist role. Hunt noted at an Imperial College Business School conference, "We want to lead responsibly. Stakeholder capitalism is a framework to do so. It's new harmony with a brain, a balance sheet, as well as a heart."

Over at Google's parent company Alphabet, board member Roger Ferguson Jr., is apparently of the mind that capitalism is broken and needs to be fixed.

"Business leaders must embrace a new definition of capitalism that puts a greater emphasis on social responsibility and equity," Ferguson said at a 2021 gala where he was being honored. "The Business Roundtable took meaningful steps toward that goal when it redefined the purpose of the corporation to include a commitment to all stakeholders."

Paul Tice, an adjunct professor of finance at the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University, indicated in his recent book, "The Race to Zero: How ESG Investing Will Crater the Global Financial System," that stakeholder capitalism theory, which began making the rounds in management circles around the 1960s, "argues that modern enterprises must serve not only shareholders but all company stakeholders — including employees, suppliers, and customers as well as the state, the economy, and society at large."

Tice suggested that stakeholder capitalism, particularly the kind championed by Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum, is built upon a corporatism "doubtless influenced by an engineering flow-chart mindset and a Prussian need to order society" that is "basically a collectivist political ideology with a dark lineage."

Buckham told Blaze News, "There's no end to what a stakeholder is or who a stakeholder is, so anybody and everybody can be one, they're loud."

"We're just saying [to company executives], 'Stop listening to everybody. Focus on your company — on what you do well, who you actually serve as the shareholder — and your company will do well," continued Buckham.

Just as Consumers' Research provides consumers with insights into how they can avoid giving woke companies their hard-earned cash, the 1792 Exchange — named in tribute to the founding of the first American stock exchange in 1792 — seeks to both chasten top executives and help investors "make sure that they know what's going on in the companies they're invested in."

Buckham indicated that the 1792 Exchange will keep furnishing investors with insights so they can avoid woke companies and have a hand in turning things around for the better.

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