SpaceX

Faith-Aligned Investors, Big Tech, and the Fight Against Child Exploitation

Some advocates say investors shouldn’t underestimate shareholders’ ability to sway a company’s views. Dustin DeVito is the director of research at the nonprofit 1792 Exchange, which encourages corporations to promote free speech, freedom of religion, and free enterprise. He said company executives sometimes aren’t aware of what’s happening down in the trenches of their businesses’ day-to-day operations, and all they may need is for shareholders to bring a concern to their attention. “When issues are being voted on at a company’s annual general meeting, if you have shares in a company, you have a vote,” explained DeVito. “If you have shares, you have the ability to get in touch with investor relations … [and] have those conversations with the executives.” DeVito also said that CSAM is a new part of the social discussion—one that companies don’t have decades of experience dealing with. “People have not really been taking this seriously or talking about it in a comprehensive way until very recently,” DeVito said. “So just based on just where these companies have been over the past few years, I think there really is a chance for people to have direct engagements with the executives.” The full article can be found …

ESG Rating Inconsistencies and Their Ideological Ends

Allen Mendenhall’s recent piece on MSCI ranking SpaceX in the same ESG tier as Russia asks a fair question: how does a rocket company advancing American innovation get scored the same as a state waging war? Unbeknownst to many, inconsistencies are common when it comes to ESG portfolios and ratings. In 2022, S&P dropped Tesla from its S&P 500 ESG Index while ExxonMobil landed in the top ten. The EV maker scored worse on an “Environmental, Social, Governance” rating than a major oil company. In fact, according to MIT Sloan’s Aggregate Confusion Project, ESG ratings from major agencies correlate at only about 0.61. Compare that to credit ratings from Moody’s and S&P, which agree 99% of the time. Companies often receive vastly different ESG rating scores from ratings providers, even ones that share a pro-ESG bias. These are the kinds of inconsistencies that led Elon Musk, CEO of the second-largest electric vehicle manufacturer in the world, to declare that ESG is a scam. Mendenhall concludes himself: the SpaceX rating shows ESG functioning less as “socially conscious investing” and more as “a mechanism for advancing ideological ends.”

Opinion: Corporate leaders flee the result of left-wing agendas they supported

As You Sow Misleads Readers about Anti-DEI Proposals

Earlier this summer, as the 2025-2026 proxy season came to a close, leading progressive shareholder group As You Sow intentionally misled readers about the success of anti-DEI proposals. As You Sow suggested that voting results on anti-DEI shareholder proposals at 43 companies this season, including Disney, Costco, Visa, and Apple, proved that 99% of investors are opposed to anti-DEI measures.  As You Sow claimed that the universal failure of these proposals sends an “unmistakable message” to corporate boards that DEI is a “financial asset” that directors need to prioritize for the needs of the company, labelling anti-DEI efforts as a “political threat.” A 0-43 record for anti-DEI proposals does appear striking at first. However, no ESG proposals won majority support in the 2025-2026 proxy season, which includes pro-DEI proposals at 0-10 with an average support around 13%.  According to Broadridge’s 2025 ProxyPulse report, voting by retail investors “declined to 28% of their shares owned in 2025,” which is the lowest level of participation in 9 years. Low retail investor participation is the historical norm, as proxy votes are disproportionately cast by large institutions on their behalf, not by individual investors. As You Sow knows this. Furthermore, for As You Sow to suggest that “[d]iversity is not a liability to be managed, it is a dividend to be captured” when companies like IBM and Nike have recently faced intense scrutiny for their DEI practices is absurd.  To learn more about the Myth of Shareholder Democracy, consider reading Stefan Padfield’s piece titled: Proxy Voting and the Myth About Shareholder Democracy. 

DEI by Another Name

In response to legal, political, consumer, or shareholder pressures, companies are increasingly replacing “DEI” terminology with broader terms such as “Inclusion,” “Culture,” or “Belonging,” while providing little explanation as to whether the changes are substantive or primarily cosmetic.  For example, CVS Health renamed its public-facing DEI page to ”Inclusion & Belonging” without issuing a public statement explaining the change. The company also stopped referencing a diversity pay metric for leadership in their annual 10-K filing. Similarly, Home Depot quietly removed its DEI webpage and replaced it with a ”Living Our Values“ section. While these changes alter the public branding, they do not necessarily clarify whether the companies’ underlying policies or priorities have materially changed.  From a shareholder perspective, this lack of transparency can create uncertainty about a company’s strategic direction and how it intends to approach politically and socially contentious issues going forward. It is in companies’ best fiduciary interest to clearly communicate whether they are maintaining, modifying, or discontinuing DEI-related initiatives rather than simply changing terminology. Providing that clarity allows shareholders and other stakeholders to better understand the company’s priorities and evaluate whether its policies remain focused on advancing its core business objectives and long-term fiduciary responsibilities.  Home Depot’s Previous DEI Page vs Its “Rebranded” Page

How Companies Have Responded to the SPLC

Growing scrutiny of the Southern Poverty Law Center has sparked a broader conversation about how its “hate group” list is being used to blacklist mainstream Christian and conservative nonprofits from corporate charitable giving programs, most notably through Benevity, one of the largest employee-match platforms, used by hundreds of the Fortune 500. Below, we track how companies are responding to the public call to distance themselves from the SPLC and to stop using its designations to discriminate in corporate giving. 7 Publicly removed the SPLC filter 5 Confirmed no politicized filters 5 Distanced themselves from the SPLC 2 Dodged or downplayed the filter 7 Publicly removed the SPLC filter Salesforce Bowyer Research (Substack) Mastercard Bowyer Research (Substack) Texas Instruments Bowyer Research (Substack) AT&T Bowyer Research (Substack) NVIDIA Daily Signal Microsoft Daily Signal DoorDash Daily Signal 5 Confirmed they do not use politicized hate-group filters for charitable eligibility Meta Bowyer Research (Substack) Morgan Stanley Bowyer Research (Substack) Citi Citi Foundation statement McDonald’s American Express 5 Publicly distanced themselves from the SPLC Reported together in a single account of tech companies stepping back from the SPLC. Source: Daily Signal → Alphabet Mastercard Meta PayPal Salesforce 2 Dodged or downplayed the SPLC filter Starbucks …