BlackRock, Big Tech and the Corporate Capture of the Grid

Wall Street Is Buying the Grid While AI Devours the Power

Electricity powers our homes, hospitals, schools, water systems and communications. Yet this essential public service is increasingly being reshaped around the demands of Wall Street investors and some of the world’s most powerful technology corporations—at the very moment the climate crisis requires a rapid transition away from fossil fuels.

This is not merely a story about artificial intelligence consuming enormous quantities of electricity. It is a story about corporate rule: who owns essential infrastructure, who influences the rules governing it, who receives the benefits and who is forced to absorb the costs.

The New Political Kingmakers: AI, Crypto and Gambling Corporations

Corporations are pouring millions into the 2026 elections to influence the lawmakers who will

A new class of political kingmakers is emerging in the 2026 elections—and they are not voters.

Artificial-intelligence, cryptocurrency and online-gambling corporations have poured approximately $344 million into efforts to influence the 2026 federal elections. Overall, corporations contributed a record $646 million to Super PACs and other political committees during the 18 months ending in June 2026—already 40 percent more than the $461 million disclosed during the entire 2024 election cycle. These totals exclude undisclosed contributions to dark-money organizations, meaning the true level of corporate political spending is likely even higher.

Companies including Coinbase, Ripple, OpenAI, Anthropic and DraftKings are helping build political operations designed to shape congressional races and the regulations governing their industries

The Trump regime is paying German energy giant RWE $1.22 billion not to build offshore wind farms. It is the fifth such deal this year, pushing the public cost of dismantling clean-power projects toward $4 billion.

This is not an isolated decision. The administration has attacked pollution limits for power plants, sought exemptions allowing industrial facilities to release more toxic chemicals, weakened methane controls, and moved to erase the scientific foundation for regulating greenhouse gases. Trump officials proudly call this the largest deregulatory campaign in American history.

It was not a gift from Congress, the courts, or the political establishment. Women organized for generations to force the nation to recognize a fundamental democratic truth: a government cannot claim to represent people it excludes from political power.

The struggle took more than 70 years after the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, known as the launch for Women's Suffrage Movement. Suffragists marched, organized, published newspapers, delivered speeches, petitioned lawmakers, endured arrests, and faced violence and public ridicule. They challenged laws, cultural norms and institutions that treated women as dependents rather than full political participants.

Their victory also demonstrated something powerful: the Constitution is not untouchable. When it protects an unjust system- or fails to protect the people- organized movements can change it.