10 Companies That Secretly Control The World

[0:00]What if we told you that just one company, one that you've probably never heard of, has assets equal to over 40% of the US's GDP? And alongside just two others, it controls nearly 90% of the most powerful companies in America. If you think that's crazy, just wait, because we're only scratching the surface. There's so much more to uncover, and this isn't some wild conspiracy theory. We're sticking to the facts as we pull back the curtain on the 10 companies that secretly run the world. Number 10, Nvidia. Some of the companies on our list are here not only because of how powerful they are now, but how powerful they will become in the future. A few years ago, most people hadn't even heard of Nvidia, unless they saw the company's logo on their video game loading screens. Now, Nvidia is all over the news. So, what exactly does Nvidia do, and why is everyone talking about it? Well, Nvidia is almost single-handedly supporting the entire AI revolution. While the company has had its hands in a few areas of technology, it's best known for one thing: manufacturing GPUs, or graphics processing units. GPUs are responsible for producing the visuals on your computer. They take in digital data and they output visual data. Artificial intelligence requires massive data centers of interconnected computers to work, and high-performance GPUs are necessary for all of this computing power to work. Because, well, AI isn't actually intelligent, it needs a bunch of computers to run all the potential answers AI can give you and see which one is the most likely. And that's where Nvidia comes in, it's cornered the market for high-performance GPUs. Up until now, they were used to produce incredible visuals for a metal gear solid, but Nvidia saw the future. Few years ago, it realized that GPUs could do way more and started investing heavily in chips designed specifically for AI. They were called programmable GPUs, which could be customized to execute a lot of computations, like those used in artificial intelligence. Even though market experts thought this was a risky bet by Nvidia, it turned out to be right on the money. And now they're the only game in town. They were the first and only people to invest in these GPUs before Chat GPT even made it out to market. In fact, ChatGPT itself was trained on 10,000 Nvidia GPUs. As one Wall Street analyst said, there's a war going on out there in AI. And Nvidia is the only arms dealer. Right now, every huge company like Google, Meta, Apple, Microsoft, and Open AI, all need Nvidia chips to function. Their GPUs power chatbots, GPUs and even self-driving vehicle tech. Looking at you, Tesla. Even though some of these tech giants and other companies have started to produce chips, Nvidia is still light years ahead. Right now, the company has an 80% share of the GPU chip market. Maybe that's why the company's market cap went from $364 billion in 2023 to $3.65 trillion in 2024. In just one year, Nvidia became the most valuable company in the world. Meanwhile, we've just been disappointing Duolingo with our Spanish progress. The company is now valued at over $3 trillion, making it the first chip company to ever cross that line. But that's what happens when 50 out of the 100 biggest US tech companies have to buy their chips from you. While that's great news for those with stock in Nvidia, it also means the entire AI market is now dependent on the production schedule of one company, something that's already causing problems for buyers. One such company, Supermicro Computer, said Nvidia isn't producing AI chips fast enough for demand, leading to disappointing profits. Number nine, Saudi Aramco. You've heard of Exxon, BP, Shell, the companies that overcharge you at the pump and occasionally experience leaks that kill entire fish populations. Well, they are not the biggest companies in the oil game. That honor goes to Saudi Aramco, an oil company based where else, Saudi Arabia? And let's just say they've had quite the winning streak over the past couple years, thanks to a perfect storm of factors. Global conflicts disrupted supply lines and sent gas prices through the roof. And Saudi Aramco cashed in big. Their revenue soared to staggering heights, making them the most profitable company in the world. While other companies also did well, ExxonMobil made $56 billion in 2022, Aramco sold $592 billion worth of oil and petrochemicals that same year, making $156 billion in profit. If you're wondering who owns Saudi Aramco, which stands for Saudi Arabian Oil Company, it's a venture between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and, well, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Arabian government owns a 92% share, while another 8% is owned by a public investment fund, the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia. So, how did Aramco concentrate so much of its wealth? Partly through the tactics of the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, better known as MBS. When MBS came to power in 2018, he held nearly 400 Saudi oil tycoons and members of his own royal family at the Ritz-Carlton for a, quote, interrogation. He alleged that everyone was being held on suspicion of corruption. Then, he politely suggested everyone stop asking questions. The royals and the tycoons wishing to leave this endless interrogation, not to mention the horrendous Ritz-Carlton accommodations, and return to their palaces, eventually pledged loyalty to MBS, along with more than $100 billion worth of money. No Saudi oil tycoon has appeared on the Forbes Global Billionaire list since, even though they were permanent fixtures before that. A lot of the profits from Aramco get reinvested back into the kingdom. Saudi Arabia is trying to modernize its image to the outside world, and it's opened itself to tourism for the first time in decades, and it's investing in glamorous new infrastructure and high-tech projects. The most impressive and semi-pointless of these proposed projects has to be Neom. It'll be a futuristic city of 9 million people on the Red Sea coast and built on a 110-mile-long, 600-foot-wide line, imaginatively called the Line. It'll run on AI and renewable energy and include no cars or emissions. Saudi Arabia's increased wealth via Aramco has given it a huge amount of political and diplomatic power to achieve its goals around the world. Number eight: BlackRock. When people think of companies that run the world, especially in the US, they think of infamous conglomerates. Perhaps huge banks or media empires, but there are more important and well-hidden companies that maintain majority shares and therefore control of pretty much all of those big conglomerates. The puppet masters of the puppet masters. They're known as The Big Three. Problems with the Big Three running the world are pretty similar, so we'll use each company to explain one of the major issues. Companies like BlackRock. BlackRock operates as a fiduciary, which means that people, for whatever reason, trust the people working there to invest their money. They operate mostly through offering mutual funds in which many investors can pool their money together to buy a portfolio of bonds, stocks, or other investments. So many people have trusted BlackRock with their money that the company now has $11 1/2 trillion in assets. And if that sounds like an insane amount to you, that's because it is. Here's some context, the US's GDP in 2023 was $27.36 trillion. BlackRock's assets are equal to 42% of that. In fact, BlackRock's assets are equal to more than the total government spending of the world's top 10 wealthiest countries combined. One of the major problems with a company amassing this much money and power is that BlackRock has an oversized influence on corporate decisions in nearly every major industry in the US. The how and the why will surprise you, as we'll soon learn. But BlackRock also works abroad, and not only with other companies, but governments as well. For example, BlackRock was the first ever company to get access to China's bonded stock markets, and then it became the first foreign firm to start a mutual fund business in China. Media outlets hailed this new development in US-Chinese financial cooperation, while people well-versed in the finance industry had just one question. What exactly did BlackRock promise China in return? We doubt Xi Jinping opened up China's market to a powerful American company after years of bans, because he was just feeling generous that day. The US House of Representatives had the same question. It didn't like some of the answers they found. They accused BlackRock of heavily investing in, quote, red flag Chinese companies that have been blacklisted by the US. These include companies that develop China's military, enable the techno-totalitarian surveillance state of China, and most troublingly, help run forced labor camps in the Weiger region. These are far from the only accusations against BlackRock. They've also been accused of helping deforest the Amazon. And if BlackRock's financial interests end up conflicting with US national and civilian interests, we somehow doubt the company will pick the welfare of its neighbors over its bottom line. Just like, number seven: Vanguard. Vanguard is another of the companies known as the Big Three. The third one's coming up. Vanguard's also a fiduciary with a troubling amount of influence. In fact, financial experts estimate that the Big Three control upwards of 88% of the 500 most important US companies today by being their primary shareholders, meaning they own a majority of the company's stock. That includes some of the largest American companies, like Apple, ExxonMobil, General Electric, and Coca-Cola. When corporations justify their greed by saying they have a duty to shareholders, they're not talking about you, sitting at home with the four Apple stocks you bought three years ago. They're talking about Vanguard, BlackRock, and other giants that really call the shots. Some of the only companies that retain oversight and ownership by private individuals include tech giants like Amazon and Meta. Maybe that's why you hear so much about Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, than you do about the CEOs of, say, Coca-Cola. Because the Big Three have a lot more say in what his executive board does. And Vanguard is more upfront about their meddling in corporate decisions than its sister companies. While BlackRock claims it doesn't own the shares it invests in, it just manages them for its clients, Vanguard CEO, William McNabb had a different take. Back in 2015, he openly acknowledged the influence that comes with holding such massive stakes in major companies. In the past, some have mistakenly assumed that our predominantly passive management style suggests a passive attitude with respect to corporate governance. Nothing could be further from the truth. In simple terms, they can and they definitely will interfere in corporate decisions and governance when they want to. Because no matter what BlackRock is trying to say, the Big Three do get to vote on company decisions according to the size of their share. They tend to vote on the side of management rather than shareholders around 90% of the time, according to the University of Amsterdam professors and researchers who looked into the data. So, how did a company like Vanguard get so powerful? Well, it all started after the 2008 financial crisis, a shock that rattled the entire economic system. When markets collapsed and wiped out life savings, people looked for safer ways to invest, hoping to avoid losing their homes and their hard-earned money ever again. They used to put money in actively managed funds, in which managers analyze the market, and they try to get better returns than the average of the stock index. The problem was that these very well-paid managers, handling millions and millions of dollars, were rarely able to actually do what they promised. But they were still paid 1% to 2% in fees every year. So, the public, or more specifically, the kinds of people that think mutual funds are interesting dinner party conversations, thought, hey, why don't we save that 1% to 2% and invest in an index fund and get the same amount of money if not more? And that's exactly what they did. From 2007 to 2016, $1,200 billion was taken out of actively managed funds and $1,400 billion was put into index funds. Who ran most of those index funds? Well, that would be BlackRock, Vanguard, and, number six, State Street. Now that a lot of US investors have put their money into Big Three companies like State Street, they have gone on to take control of major US companies. What does that mean for the present and the future of the economy? Unsurprisingly, nothing good. A lot of big companies have been merging over the years, industries like banking, media, and aviation, that used to be run by 50 or 60 different companies in the late 20th century, might now be run by four or five companies. This creates a really bad environment for competition in that it doesn't really allow any. And what do the mega companies that remain at the top have in common after everyone else has been merged into them or put out of business? Mostly that they're controlled by the Big Three. You ever noticed your bank rolling out rules that seem unfair, with overdraft and credit card fees that border on extortion? And then you try to switch banks and you realize the deals there aren't any better? Well, here's why. State Street and its two sister companies have controlling stakes in JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and City Group. So, good luck finding better customer service anytime soon. Tried booking a flight on a good US airline, only to find that there's no such thing. Guess what? Big Three own stakes in Delta, United, and American Airlines. The CEOs of all these companies answer to the Big Three. If they lower their prices or do away with ridiculous fees, that means less money going back to their Big Three stakes. And when the Big Three themselves try to fleece customers, why would the companies they control be any different? In 2021, the US Department of Justice found that State Street defrauded its own clients of hundreds of millions of dollars over decades in a most pedestrian way. They tacked on hidden markups to routine charges for out-of-pocket expenses. According to US Attorney Nathaniel Armendell, the good news is that after 17 years of charging their own clients more than they should in order to pocket the difference, State Street was forced to pay a penalty of $115 million. The bad news is that as of 2024, State Street has $4.7 trillion in assets under management. And the merging corporate empires they control are also doing their best to control the world on their own. Companies like, number five, Comcast. The Walt Disney Media Company might be the most recognizable entertainment company in the world, but Comcast is actually the largest, and arguably the most important. And that's because Comcast isn't just a giant in TV channels, media services, and film production. It also owns theme parks and a network of telecommunications companies across the globe. Their most well-known property is NBC Universal. This means, in addition to Universal Studios, Comcast owns NBC, MSNBC, USA, Sci-Fi, Bravo, and the streaming service Peacock. Though in recent years, they've spun off some of their basic cable channels into a separate company. Comcast also owns DreamWorks Animation Studios, the masterminds behind Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar, and How to Train Your Dragon. In fact, Comcast has acquired so many properties that it's moved beyond entertainment and media and into other realms, namely the tech that allows you to get your entertainment and media. One of its biggest brands is Xfinity, which provides cable and internet service, as well as landlines for the 10% of people who still use those. If you're ready to ditch your landline and the extra 10 calls from telemarketers and scammers that come along with it, you can use Comcast's other brands to talk on a cell phone instead, AT&T. The problem is that in many cases, Comcast, like its rival, Charter, operates as a monopoly. A 2020 report analyzing FCC data found that Comcast and Charter maintain an absolute monopoly over internet service for at least 47 million people. Another 33 million have no real competition either, with slower, less reliable DSL as their only alternative. This has led to numerous complaints online about Xfinity and Comcast's online prices and their service. But why would a giant media company even try to do better if it knows there's no real other option for its customers? But Comcast's reach extends beyond the United States. Their other massive media property is Sky, the largest Pay-TV provider in Europe. And that's why Comcast is so far ahead of other media companies in earnings. It made $45.62 billion in profits in 2023, with a revenue of $121.57 billion in total. Number four, Walmart. You might be scratching your head right now, as your last interaction with Walmart was ducking in to get a shirt after you stained that nice one on your way to a friend's party. Controlling the world, you think? That's a bit much. Even if you've never set foot in a Walmart or even lived in a country without one, there's a good chance Walmart's business practices has shaped your life in ways you don't even realize. Walmart is the largest employer in the world today, with 2.1 million employees, about 1.6 million of them in the US. But it has a huge effect on people it indirectly employs as well, like manufacturers, factory workers, and local community businesses. Walmart is so massive it doesn't just place orders. It tells factories what to produce, how to make it, and how much. And factories desperate for a contract with a client as big as Walmart, are quick to agree. And soon they find they just signed their own death warrant. That's what happened to major US manufacturers like Master Lock, which made padlocks, and the bike manufacturer Huffy. In the 1980s, Walmart placed a massive order with Huffy, 900,000 low-end bicycles, which was twice what Huffy could make. Eager to work with Walmart, Huffy turned over its plans to its competitors, so everyone working overtime can meet the demand. And miraculously, they did. But Walmart was never satisfied. They wanted more products at cheaper prices in less time. To keep up, Huffy moved from a unionized factory to a non-union factory, and then eventually contracted out to China before declaring bankruptcy in 2004. What's left of the company now fully operates out of China. And that's the story of so many companies, particularly US manufacturing companies that Walmart has destroyed. Walmart's relentless focus on offering the lowest prices while remaining one of the most profitable companies in the world comes at a cost. And often leads to corners being cut in the factories worldwide, and at times outright violations of workers' rights. It's also played a huge part in depressing American communities. Economists at the University of California, Irvine, found that when Walmart moves into a town, it has devastating effects. Local employment drops, small businesses are wiped out, wages decline, and poverty rises. Walmart put small locally owned and family-owned shops that compete with it out of business. It can afford to undercut prices and sell a huge range of products, while also underpaying their employees. Walmart employees make on average 15% less than employees at other big retailers. It also fiercely resists unions everywhere it operates, depressing wages even more. Local people in small communities are left without many choices of places to shop, places to work, or many opportunities to start their own business that may compete with any products at Walmart. And those who work at Walmart barely get by on their wages. It may not have single-handedly caused the race to the bottom in American wages, US industrialization, or horrific conditions in the factories abroad, but Walmart did everything possible to encourage and enforce this new reality. Number three, Johnson and Johnson. It's hard to think of Johnson and Johnson, the company best associated with no-tear shampoo and heartwarming baby commercials, as some kind of all-powerful world-dominating company. But J&J produces a lot of products besides baby shampoo, the most important of which may be pharmaceuticals. They're not just a pharmaceutical company. Johnson and Johnson is the pharmaceutical company. They are the biggest by value pharmaceutical company in the world, worth $85.2 billion in 2023. You would be shocked at how many medical, pharmaceutical, and biotech brands fall under the company's umbrella. These brands include Benadryl, Motrin, Sudafed, Tylenol, and several other well-known over-the-counter medications. Whether you have a cold, an allergy, or just a headache, you probably need to give your money to Johnson and Johnson. But that's not all. Wear contact lenses? Yep, Acuvue is part of Johnson and Johnson. As is Visine. Are you losing your hair? Get some Rogaine from, yeah, you guessed it, Johnson and Johnson. Got a cut? Neosporin's got you covered. Lactose intolerant? That's where Lactaid comes in. Need minty fresh breath? Say hello to Listerine. All of it brought to you by one of the most far-reaching pharmaceutical giants the world has ever seen. They also own skin care cosmetic lines like Neutrogena. Did you bang your elbow on your chair from shock while hearing all this, and get a small scrape? Put a Band-Aid on it, which is, yes, once again, a product of Johnson and Johnson. That's right. Band-Aid is actually a brand, not a generic name for a thing that helps heal your cuts and remove all your arm hair. Even though J&J owns a lot of brands, it doesn't mean they're necessarily doing anything shady. The problem is that over half of Johnson and Johnson's money comes from pharmaceuticals rather than cosmetics and household products. But unlike things like Band-Aids or baby shampoo, their pharmaceuticals are not branded with their company name. No wonder you never knew both your contact solution and your Tylenol comes from the same company. It's a troubling lack of transparency for seemingly no reason. Plus being a major corporation, Johnson and Johnson has faced its share of lawsuits and allegations over the years. Perhaps the most devastating came fairly recently, when a jury ordered the company to pay billions of dollars to 22 women who had developed ovarian cancer as a result of using their talcum powder. It was revealed that Johnson and Johnson knew its talcum powder was sometimes contaminated with asbestos, and they tried to cover it up. A jury finding this behavior more than a little iffy, ordered the company to pay its victims. Number two, Cargill. What the heck is a Cargill? You might be thinking right now, and you may be surprised to know that it is the largest private company in the US. In 2024 alone, it's estimated to have made $160 billion. So, what is it? Cargill is a food production giant, making a lot of the ingredients that end up on your dinner table. Flour, beef, salt, corn, pork, oil, et cetera. The company's website says its purpose is to nourish the world in a safe, responsible, and sustainable way, which sounds like a great thing to do. So what's the problem? The problem is that in its 155 years of operation, Cargill has frequently failed to live up to that promise. And it's actually gone out of its way to do a lot of damage to the world instead. And that's just the incidents we know about. Because Cargill is a private company with 88% of the corporate owned by the Cargill family. It has no obligation and probably no incentive to share a lot of the information about its operations with the public. University of Sussex Professor Erik Millstone says a vast proportion of the world's main agricultural commodities pass through the hands of just four international trading companies. Cargill is one. He also alleges, as do many other experts, that Cargill helped drive the farming world towards a handful of cheap commodities, like wheat, maize, and soya, that could be produced on huge plots of land at very high volume. This shift in the industry drove a lot of family farms over the edge, and made farming an agribusiness dominated industry. But that's not all. Cargill has had a devastating effect on not only the environment, but human lives around the world. Since 2000 alone, the company has been responsible for several outbreaks of contaminated food, including Listeria and Salmonella. In 2004 alone, they dumped 60 million gallons of toxic waste into Florida creeks, followed up by 65 million gallons of acid into Tampa Bay. In 2005, the International Labor Rights Forum filed a suit against Cargill. They found that Malian children were being trafficked into Côte d'Ivoire to work long days with no pay and frequent beatings, in order to produce cocoa beans for Cargill. Another word for this kind of labor is slavery. They also have been accused of using child labor in Papua New Guinea to produce palm oil. In 2018, a court found that former slaves in Côte d'Ivoire could sue Cargill. The children who had worked on the cocoa farm said that representatives from Cargill had visited the farms and knew there were children working there. Former California Representative Henry Waxman called them the worst company in the world. But we have another company we need to talk about, one also named in the forced child labor lawsuit brought against Cargill. Number one, Nestle. What comes to mind when you think of Nestle? Is it chocolates? That certainly is part of the food giant's business, but Nestle may be controlling much more than you think, mainly our water. As we move into a time of increasing climate instability and water shortages are felt all over the world, water availability has become a hot button issue. Many experts believe that as past wars were fought over oil, future wars will be fought over water, which seems a much more essential resource to survive. After all, your body can only last three days without water, while you could last at least a week without your car. But Nestle decided that perhaps they should be getting all of this water for themselves. The company has gotten criticism for taking water from public water sources, bottling it, and then selling it to customers at an insanely marked up price. In 2017, Nestle pumped more than 130 million gallons of water in Northwestern Michigan alone. This water was taken from wells in the area that should have otherwise been available for public use. Nestle did pay a fee for pumping water from those wells, a whole 200 bucks. To be clear, that fee wasn't per well, it was the annual fee for pumping everything they could. The problem is more than just the exploitation of a public water source. When Nestle pumps ground water, and water from natural creeks and other resources, it often ends up depleting that water source. So, not only is it taking public water and selling it back to the public for a crazy high price, it's often erasing that water source all together for the people that use it and need it. And making over $3.5 billion in global bottled water sales in the meantime. Nestle made $111 billion in annual revenue in 2023, making it the largest food manufacturer in the world. Worse than trying to control and deplete our already diminishing water supply, Nestle has committed major human rights violations. It was also named in the lawsuit brought against Cargill, as former child slaves say that Nestle representatives also visited the cocoa farms and they knew children were being forced to work there. After the US Supreme Court dismissed the suit in 2021 for mostly technical reasons, Nestle pledged to do better. But the food giant has broken such promises before. As the Washington Post pointed out, since they promised to end the use of child labor in their supply chain in 2001, and, well, that hasn't really happened. Did you know about the companies that secretly control the whole world? What surprised you the most? Let us know below in the comments. Now go check out the oldest companies in the world or click on this video instead.