BlackRock's $14 Trillion Empirey manages the world's largest asset management firm

Individual investors and institutional clients, including pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and governments, hold their assets with BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager. As of 2025, the firm manages more than $14 trillion in assets. Through this broad investor base, BlackRock holds stakes in nearly all publicly traded companies in the United States. The firm's influence extends beyond its assets under management. Its Aladdin software is used by more than 200 financial and nonfinancial companies, including Microsoft, Alphabet, and Apple to analyze and manage investment risk. Because most index funds are weighted by market capitalization, they concentrate ownership in the largest companies. This concentration of ownership among index fund providers gives BlackRock significant influence through proxy voting.