Free Enterprise Project Rings in the New Year With Five Corporate Settlements

Microsoft Directs Benevity to Drop SPLC Filter

Microsoft has directed Benevity to stop using the SPLC’s “hate map” to filter nonprofits from its employee gift-matching program. The Daily Signal credits 1792 Exchange, alongside Bowyer Research and The Heritage Foundation, for the shareholder activism that is moving companies away from discriminating against conservatives. Thanks to shareholder activism from 1792 Exchange, Bowyer Research, The Heritage Foundation, and others, a growing list of companies has directed Benevity to stop using the SPLC. The list includes American Express, AT&T, Mastercard, McDonald’s, Nvidia, and Salesforce. The full article can be found in Daily Caller.

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.”

How One Leftist Group Prevents Corporate Employees From Supporting Conservative Nonprofits

Major Oil Company’s Shareholders Ditch Blue State’s ‘Woke Cartel’ For Texas

Dear Darren Woods and Exxon: Your Insecurity is Showing

ESG isn’t dying. It’s getting voted out