Trump’s Action on Proxy Advisors Is a Win for Investors — and a Victory for Accountability
This week, President Trump took an important step to protect American investors and restore integrity to our financial system. Through a new executive order directing the Securities and Exchange Commission to review – and if necessary, roll back – rules governing proxy advisory firms, the administration is finally reining in the unchecked power of proxy advisory duopoly Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis. For far too long these foreign-owned, politically motivated firms have wielded outsize influence over corporate governance, steering billions in investments according to ideological agendas rather than actual financial analysis.
Different groups and even the House Capital Markets Subcommittee have investigated and warned about the dangers of outsourcing corporate decision-making to unaccountable ESG gatekeepers. ISS and Glass Lewis have repeatedly used their dominance in the market to pressure companies into adopting progressive policies unrelated to performance – from racial equity audits to aggressive emissions cuts to board quotas. As the White House rightly noted, these firms have operated with troubling conflicts of interest, questionable transparency, and little oversight.
That ends now.
President Trump’s order is a clear affirmation that fiduciary duty must come before politics. Everyday Americans with 401(k)s should not have their savings hijacked by activists masquerading as analysts.
The administration’s directive also strengthens ongoing antitrust scrutiny by the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general, who are investigating whether the proxy advisory duopoly violated competition laws while advancing political objectives. This increased oversight is long overdue. Markets work best when fair competition – not ideology – drives decisions.
Even Glass Lewis’s recent announcement that it will abandon its decades-old “house view” recommendations starting in 2027 shows that the walls are already closing in. Sunlight and accountability are powerful forces.
At the Bull Moose Project, our mission is to relentlessly advocate for a dominant American future. And a dominant American future requires companies to focus on innovation, growth, and shareholder returns – not being forced to answer to ESG puppet masters. President Trump’s action is a critical step toward restoring that balance and rebuilding confidence in the proxy advisor industry again.
The message is simple: American investors – not an unelected proxy advisor duopoly – should decide the future of American companies and Americans’ 401(k)s, IRAs, and pensions. And this executive order puts that power back where it belongs.
