By Jack Pitcher, Kevin T. Dugan and Brian Schwartz

From his perch atop the investing world, with $11 trillion in assets, including portions of millions of Americans' retirement funds, BlackRock Chief Executive Larry Fink has made a career of tacking away from controversy and staying friends with world leaders. His deftness has made him the man to see at times of distress. After the 2008 financial crisis, BlackRock stepped in to handle toxic assets for the government. A decade later, the Federal Reserve tapped the firm early in the Covid-19 pandemic to manage a huge bond-buying program that helped unfreeze the markets.

Now at 72, Fink faces a major new challenge -- maintaining his role as the financial world's trusted fireman in the volatile Trump administration, where many officials once viewed him with suspicion. Fink's history of championing socially conscious and environmentally minded investments have made him a target of Republican attacks. As a GOP presidential hopeful in 2023, Vivek Ramaswamy labeled Fink "king of the woke-industrial complex."

On March 17, though, Fink was welcomed as a hero at the White House by the most powerful Republican of all.

Fink had just delivered President Trump a major victory with BlackRock's agreement to acquire ports on both ends of the Panama Canal from a Hong Kong-based company. Trump, who sees the shipping lane as a crucial strategic prize, pulled in Elon Musk, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz and Vice President JD Vance for a meeting that stretched over an hour, people briefed on the discussion said, touching on topics from the economy and markets to the ports deal, which has run into serious opposition from China.

The great game right now for CEOs, university presidents, and law-firm partners is staying in Trump's good graces. They are trying to avoid being held captive to the president's whims -- or getting caught on the outs. So far, Fink has proved adept at it.

BlackRock handles more money than any other asset manager, and is a top shareholder in nearly every large public company.

The Panama berths have added geopolitical intrigue that's brought Fink closer to the White House. China has made clear that it is unhappy over the pending transaction, which it says would restrict trade and make the shipping passage a political tool. The deal is part of a cluster of issues, including tariffs and the potential sale of TikTok, that are driving tensions between Beijing and Washington.

Trump was so happy about BlackRock's Panama Canal deal that he wants to bring Fink closer into his orbit, even as many Republicans still view the CEO with suspicion. Trump has told allies he wants to host Fink this month at his private Florida club, Mar-a-Lago, alongside other big-name investors, according to people familiar with the matter.

"The President always appreciates efforts from American companies to advance our nation's national security interests," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

Fink has had strong ties to Democrats, publicly backing Barack Obama for president in 2012 and donating to Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2016. He attended a fundraiser for Joe Biden in 2020, and top BlackRock executives went to work in his administration. Yet Fink has been careful to tend to the other side of the aisle, too -- donating to Republicans and advising officials in Trump's first administration.

"Larry has a rare combination of commercial, political and public-policy savvy," said Hank Paulson, the Treasury secretary under George W. Bush.

But by 2022, it was clear BlackRock's small political operation and ties to Republicans in congress weren't strong enough.

Fink's brief time as a pariah among some Republicans started when he tried to step outside the lines of a traditional CEO's role, in an era when just about every social norm was up for negotiation.

Starting around 2017, Fink led BlackRock in embracing "environmental, social and corporate-governance" investing -- so-called ESG funds that take into consideration whether companies are, say, acting responsibly with respect to climate change or wage inequality. At the time, Black Lives Matter and #MeToo were becoming boardroom topics.

Fink famously suggested that "climate risk is investment risk" and was a factor worth evaluating in investment decisions. He attracted particular criticism for writing in a 2020 letter to CEOs that BlackRock could vote against the management of companies that weren't willing to step up climate disclosures.

The backlash from the right was swift and powerful. Red states filed lawsuits that accused BlackRock, as well as other money managers, of not looking out for their clients' best interests. Republicans in Congress opened inquiries. BlackRock tripled its spending on Fink's security.

For the first time, Fink seemed out of tune with the nation's political mood. But he has recalibrated. He toned down his public rhetoric on ESG investing, and went on a charm offensive privately with members of Congress who were outspoken opponents.

"I look at Larry having an adeptness to pivot when he needs to," said Patrick McHenry, a former Republican congressman who chaired the House Financial Services Committee before leaving office this year, and was one of Fink's critics. "I think it's benefited the company, and certainly benefited his standing among policymakers that are running Washington right now."

It has helped that Fink can call on a decadeslong relationship with Trump, which began in earnest when BlackRock started managing some of the future president's money in the 2000s.

BlackRock, like Amazon.com and Facebook parent Meta Platforms, made large donations to Trump's inauguration, people familiar with the matter said. The firm also hired Republican lobbyists with close ties to a variety of GOP officials.

Fink has also reinvented his business in a way that put it in a perfect position to help Trump. BlackRock began making a major push into private markets last year, paying $12.5 billion for Global Infrastructure Partners, which manages airports, data centers and railroads. It spent $12 billion on HPS Investment Partners, a private-credit firm. The acquisitions, BlackRock's largest in 15 years, are remaking what the company can do.

"That's an impressive flurry of transactions," said Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser. "When Larry decides to do something, he doesn't do it by half."

BlackRock's new infrastructure business made it a viable candidate to pull off the $23 billion deal to buy more than 40 ports around the world from Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison, including those at either end of the Panama Canal that Trump was pushing for a U.S. firm to acquire.

"The ports deal is something they wouldn't have been able to do prior to the acquisition," said Steven Mnuchin, who said he spoke regularly with Fink when he served as treasury secretary in Trump's first term. "I'm not surprised he was in touch with the president on that issue."

If completed, the deal could be a boon for BlackRock's institutional clients, and shield the firm from Trump's scrutiny. But Fink has laid out a bigger goal: the potential for private investments like infrastructure, which can often be opaque, to make their way into the 401(k)s and IRAs of the investing public.

"Assets that will define the future -- data centers, ports, power grids, the world's fastest-growing private companies -- aren't available to most investors," Fink wrote this week in his annual letter to investors. "They're in private markets, locked behind high walls, with gates that open only for the wealthiest or largest market participants."

Inside BlackRock, Fink was known to shout in the firm's early years. A common phrase in bad times is We're bullsh -- ing ourselves. But he rewards his executives with warmth and loyalty. When co-founder Ralph Schlosstein's mother died in BlackRock's early years, it was Fink who rallied all the company's partners to attend the funeral in Philadelphia, said one former executive.

Missing out on big deals can make for especially bad times, as when Fink was caught off guard by a $20 billion pact rival Blackstone struck with Saudi Arabia in 2017. "He was so batsh -- about that deal, so angry that we were caught off-guard in the Middle East," said Peter McKillop, a former BlackRock spokesman, adding that it caused Fink to deepen his engagement in the region. "That was the deal that triggered him, big time."

For years, Fink has left nearly all of the day-to-day management of BlackRock to his deputies. But he relishes his role as a spokesman for his firm and Wall Street. To allies, Fink's avoidance of society columns and splashy events has made him a rare financier of the old-school variety.

To his detractors, he is a name dropper who talks too much, and whose desire to be seen as a global power broker means his every meeting in Washington seems to get a write-up.

As the 1980s bond markets boomed, Fink -- a Los Angeles-born UCLA grad -- was a sharp-elbowed trader who quickly was named co-head of the fixed-income desk at First Boston. He was the youngest managing director in the investment bank's history.

"He was not much different than he is now. Maybe a little meaner. Always very charming. Always had very strong opinions," said Wilbur Ross, who served as commerce secretary during Trump's first administration, and who knew Fink socially at the time.

Fink started wiring himself into Washington early on, when he pitched the first collateralized mortgage-backed securities to Freddie Mac. He was a rainmaker at First Boston, until his department cost the firm $100 million in the second quarter of 1986, thanks to a disastrous bet on the direction of interest rates. When Fink announced his departure two years later, a spokesman made it clear he had been fired.

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April 04, 2025 21:00 ET (01:00 GMT)

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