Plutocracy
Power organized around wealth. Financial resources can purchase access, fund advocacy, and sustain influence across election cycles.
An exhibition on power, ownership & agency
The Land
of Monopoly.
The Power of Refusal
Boycotts, ownership, and economic agency.
The labels change. The money often ends up in the same place. Learn the ownership—and decide what deserves your support.
MoneyWhat your purchases sustain
CapitalWhat your investments enable
AttentionWhat your engagement amplifies
Democracy is the veneer.
Concentrated wealth holds the power.
A system governed by wealth cannot deliver meaningful rule by the people. Finance, inherited fortunes, and corporate power shape the choices placed before us. A ballot alone cannot dismantle the economic dependencies that sustain that power.
Strategic boycotts need to begin. They require education, coordination, persistence, and practical alternatives. Learn the ownership. Choose a demand. Move money and attention together.
Oligarchy
Power concentrated among a small group. The question is how open decision-making remains to people outside that group.
Corporatocracy
A critical term for corporate dominance over public decision-making. Trace ownership, lobbying, contracting, and regulation to test the claim.
Three faces of concentrated power
Plutocracy supplies the wealth. Oligarchy concentrates the decisions. Corporatocracy embeds those interests in the institutions of daily life. This is the political critique that drives the exhibition: formal choice loses substance when economic power repeatedly determines the available choices.
Specialist oligarchy
Technical and professional gatekeepers can become another concentration of authority. The demand is for transparent decisions, independent scrutiny, and meaningful routes of appeal. Expertise carries public responsibilities; credentials should never make power unaccountable.
Research finding
Gilens and Page analyzed 1,779 U.S. policy cases from 1981–2002. Their model found substantial independent influence from economic elites and business-oriented groups, with little or no independent influence from average citizens. The study provides a historical measure of unequal responsiveness in federal policymaking.
Read the 2014 study ↗Stop sustaining what you want to change. Build what you want to sustain.
Four questions that turn a critique into an investigation
Who owns the assets?
Start with the named parent, subsidiaries, and completed transactions. Then identify who holds voting rights and who appoints decision-makers.
Who controls access?
Look for the contract, platform, distributor, formulary, license, or procurement rule that a participant cannot easily avoid.
Who can change the conduct?
A manufacturer, retailer, employer, regulator, or public purchaser may hold a different lever. Address the demand to someone with actual authority.
What would count as success?
Define a published policy change, a contract revision, or another independently checkable outcome. A slogan can unite people; evidence tells them whether anything changed.
The roots run deep.
The founders died. The fortunes, institutions, and methods of concentrating power outlived them. Companies split, merged, and changed names. Family capital moved through inheritances, banking houses, and endowed institutions. Today’s ownership map has a history—and that history is still being written.
Consolidation concentrates decisions as well as assets. A trust can place separate companies under common direction. A merger can absorb a competitor. A banking network can connect industrial firms through credit, shareholdings, and overlapping boards. The records below show how those arrangements took shape and how their legacies continued.
The family banking house
Rothschild & Co traces its business records to Mayer Amschel Rothschild in 1769. His five sons established businesses in Frankfurt, London, Paris, Vienna, and Naples, building a network active in government bonds and international finance. Family partnerships could connect capital across borders long before today’s multinational banks.
Many companies. Nine trustees.
John D. Rockefeller and his associates formed Standard Oil in 1870. In 1882, its trust centralized control over component businesses in nine trustees. They selected company directors and officers and determined distributions of consolidated profits. Separate corporate names could sit beneath one center of decision-making.
National Archives: how the trust worked ↗ · Company origins ↗
The gold contract
On February 8, 1895, the U.S. Treasury contracted with a syndicate linking J. P. Morgan & Co., August Belmont & Co., and N. M. Rothschild & Sons to replenish its gold reserve. The agreement exchanged U.S. bonds for 3.5 million ounces of standard gold coin, with at least half supplied from Europe.
The signed contract makes a structural dependency visible: a public institution turned to a private financial network for emergency resources.
Buying the competitors
J. P. Morgan helped bring Carnegie Steel and other steel businesses together into U.S. Steel in 1901. The banker’s role extended into the organization of production itself: financial deals combined previously separate industrial enterprises under a single corporate structure.
Oil trusts and steel mergers used different legal arrangements to pursue a common advantage—greater scale and fewer independent centers of competition.
From private rescue to the Federal Reserve
During the Panic of 1907, Morgan organized private financing to stabilize the banking system. In 1910, bankers and officials met secretly at Jekyll Island to develop a monetary reform proposal. The resulting Aldrich plan faced opposition for giving bankers too much control.
The Federal Reserve Act, signed in 1913, emerged from that political struggle. It combined regional Reserve Banks with a federally appointed oversight board. Banking influence, government authority, and public accountability were contested in the design of the institution itself.
Funding the future of medicine
The Carnegie Foundation published the Flexner Report in 1910. Rockefeller-funded organizations then used grants to advance laboratory- and hospital-based medical education. The Rockefeller Foundation, incorporated in 1913, received $100 million from John D. Rockefeller in its first year.
Endowments gave private wealth a durable role in setting research and training priorities. The medical reforms strengthened scientific education while contributing to an exclusionary institutional landscape; historical scholarship documents unequal support for Black medical schools.
Original Flexner Report ↗ · Medical education grants ↗ · Foundation history ↗ · Historical analysis of exclusion ↗
The count records overlapping board positions within the report’s specified network. It measures institutional connections; present-day control requires present-day ownership and voting records.
Corporate succession / A documented oil lineage
A breakup becomes another beginning.
The Supreme Court ordered Standard Oil’s dissolution in 1911. Successor businesses continued, acquired assets, adopted new names, and sometimes combined again. This selected branch follows that corporate history into the present.
- 1911 / Dissolution
Standard Oil separates
The breakup produced 34 companies, including Jersey Standard, Socony, and Vacuum Oil.
- 1966–1972 / New names
Mobil & Exxon
Socony-Vacuum’s lineage led to Mobil. Jersey Standard became Exxon in 1972.
- 1999 / Recombination
Exxon + Mobil
The companies merged on November 30, 1999. Two branches of the old Standard Oil structure reunited.
- 2024 / Acquisition
Pioneer joins ExxonMobil
ExxonMobil completed its acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources on May 3, 2024.
1911 Supreme Court opinion ↗ · Successor-company history ↗ · Pioneer acquisition closing ↗
Antitrust changed the board—and remains part of the story
The Sherman Act of 1890 created a federal basis for challenging monopolistic practices. The Clayton and Federal Trade Commission Acts followed in 1914. In the 1999 Exxon–Mobil case, the FTC required divestitures or assignments involving about 2,431 gas stations, alongside other assets, to settle its competition concerns.
Consolidation and public intervention have developed together. Merger terms, enforcement decisions, court remedies, and the resources devoted to oversight help determine whether competition survives.
Beyond the founders
Fortunes can become lasting institutions.
The Rockefeller thread
David Rockefeller became president of Chase Manhattan in 1961 and chair and CEO in 1969, serving until his retirement in 1981. He also chaired the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, later Rockefeller University, from 1950 to 1975. One career connected banking leadership and biomedical philanthropy.
The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, established in 1940, received a $250 million bequest from his estate in 2018. Its trustee directory lists Justin Rockefeller and Valerie Rockefeller as of this exhibition’s October 8, 2026 review. Inheritance, endowment, and board service carry the family’s institutional presence across generations.
David Rockefeller’s institutional roles ↗ · Fund and bequest history ↗ · Trustee directory ↗
The name and the ownership record
J. P. Morgan’s firm became a public company in 1940 and merged with Chase Manhattan in 2000. JPMorganChase traces its organization to more than 1,200 predecessor institutions. The corporate name carries a long history of accumulated businesses.
Rothschild & Co provides a documented example of continuing family control. Its French and British businesses combined in 2003; it delisted from the Paris stock exchange in 2023. The group describes itself as family-controlled, with a seventh generation of family leadership. Corporate succession and continuing family control are distinct relationships that can each be traced.
JPMorganChase: predecessors and mergers ↗ · Rothschild & Co: structure and history ↗
The dollar’s changing rules: gold, central banking, and 1971
Monetary power also depends on the rules governing currency, reserves, and international payments. These changes occurred across several administrations and decades.
1933–1934
Domestic gold redemption ends
Roosevelt’s gold program restricted private monetary gold holdings. The Gold Reserve Act of 1934 transferred monetary gold to the Treasury and prohibited domestic dollar redemption in gold.
Gold Reserve Act history ↗1944
The dollar anchors Bretton Woods
Delegates from 44 countries agreed on a new international monetary framework and institutions that became the IMF and World Bank. The resulting system linked currencies to the dollar, with official dollar-to-gold convertibility at $35 an ounce.
Bretton Woods history ↗1971
Nixon closes the gold window
On August 15, Nixon suspended the conversion of dollars into gold for foreign monetary authorities, ending the remaining official gold-convertibility commitment.
State Department: the Nixon shock ↗1973
Floating exchange rates emerge
After further currency crises, major currencies moved to floating against the dollar. The Bretton Woods fixed-exchange-rate system gave way.
The 1971–1973 transition ↗Two rules, two kinds of authority.
Legal tender concerns currency’s legal status for settling debts. Gold convertibility concerns the ability to exchange currency for gold. The dollar retained legal-tender status after the gold window closed.
The Federal Reserve’s governance combines a federal Board of Governors with regional Reserve Banks. Member banks hold statutory Reserve Bank stock subject to legal restrictions; appointments, legislation, oversight, and monetary-policy decisions determine how its public authority is exercised.
Consolidation continues
The mechanism survives the era.
Modern mergers and acquisitions keep reshaping markets. A 2022 Defense Department report described a contraction from 51 to five major aerospace and defense prime contractors since the 1990s. USDA research documents concentration in meat processing. These are sector-specific records of a recurring process: more economic activity passing through fewer large organizations.
85%
Share of U.S. steer and heifer slaughter handled by the four largest firms in 2019.
USDA / 2023 report ↗51 → 5
Major aerospace and defense prime contractors, since the 1990s, as reported in 2022.
Defense Department ↗1,200+
Predecessor institutions in JPMorganChase’s corporate history. A lineage count, rather than a market-share measure.
Corporate history ↗Monopoly, oligopoly, and the ownership map
A monopoly involves one dominant supplier in a defined market; an oligopoly involves a small group. Concentration is measured within a product and geographic market. The atlas shows corporate families. Market-share studies measure how much of a defined market those families control; dated governance records identify who holds voting power.
Ownership has more than one form
Pfizer, Moderna and Bayer trade on public stock markets. Boehringer Ingelheim and Cargill are family-owned businesses. Syngenta Group is ultimately state-owned through Sinochem. Legal structure determines how ownership and control can be investigated.
Roche illustrates another distinction: a listed company can still have concentrated voting power. It reported a shareholder voting pool holding 64.97% of its issued voting shares at December 31, 2025. Roche also issues non-voting securities, separating economic interests from formal voting rights.
Roche share structure and dated voting pool ↗ · Company ownership sources below ↗
Follow the institution. Find the decision.
The exhibition’s argument is that accumulated private wealth can keep shaping public life long after its original owners are gone. The practical investigation follows specific powers: who holds the votes, allocates credit, awards grants, negotiates contracts, and sets the rules? Those connections identify where organized public pressure can reach a decision-maker.
Explore the present-day ownership atlas ↗Trace the history.
Name the connection.
Industrial chemistry built enormous corporate portfolios. IG Farben’s formation and breakup, followed by later mergers and acquisitions, left a history that can be traced through named businesses and dated transactions.
Historical successionLater acquisitionCurrent portfolio below
- Before 1925
Six chemical companies
Bayer, BASF, Hoechst, Agfa, Griesheim-Elektron, and Weiler-ter Meer.
- 1925 merger
IG Farben
A vast German chemical conglomerate spanning dyes, pharmaceuticals, industrial chemicals, synthetic materials, and crop protection.
- Postwar breakup
Separate successors
Bayer reestablished in 1951. BASF reestablished in 1952. These were among the businesses created from the former conglomerate.
Bayer’s historical record ↗ · BASF’s historical record ↗
1901
Monsanto Chemical Works
Founded as Monsanto Chemical Works.
Acquired by Bayer7 June 2018 →
Current atlas
Bayer + Monsanto
Bayer completed its acquisition of Monsanto in June 2018, bringing a major seed and crop-protection business into the group.
Inspect Bayer’s portfolio ↗Archival Monsanto pamphlet ↗ · Completed acquisition ↗
Another pharmaceutical branch: Hoechst → Aventis → Sanofi
The Hoechst works also entered IG Farben in 1925 and emerged again after the war. Hoechst and Rhône-Poulenc combined into Aventis in 1999. Sanofi-Synthélabo acquired Aventis in 2004, creating a documented historical path into today’s Sanofi.
Explore Sanofi’s portfolio ↗The human cost is documented.
IG Farben exploited forced labor at Auschwitz-Monowitz. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum documents the company’s role in the camp system and Bayer’s history within the conglomerate.
It also records that Fritz ter Meer, convicted of war crimes, returned to Bayer’s supervisory board in 1956 and remained until 1964. Corporate reconstruction did not erase continuity in personnel.
USDA seed-market evidence, published 2023 ↗
Competition was a documented issue in the Monsanto deal
In 2018, the U.S. Justice Department required approximately $9 billion in divestitures to BASF to address competition concerns in Bayer’s Monsanto acquisition. This records both the concentration risk and the use of public authority to require structural changes.
A campaign can focus on a seed variety, trait license, herbicide, purchasing contract, or local supplier network. Each has a distinct set of buyers, suppliers and alternatives.
People built the leverage.
The most durable campaigns paired withdrawal with organization, practical alternatives, and demands that could be met.
1760s–1770s
Colonial nonimportation
Organized refusal of British imports helped turn consumption into political action. Most Townshend duties were repealed in 1770; the duty on tea remained. Multiple pressures shaped the outcome.
Library of Congress ↗1773
The Boston Tea Party
The destruction of East India Company tea was distinct from a purchasing boycott. Parliament retaliated, including closing Boston's port. Symbolic disruption can mobilize a movement and impose costs on participants.
National Park Service ↗1955–1956
Montgomery: 381 days
Participants refused segregated buses while an organized carpool helped people reach work. A parallel court challenge struck down bus segregation. Alternative transportation made sustained withdrawal possible.
National Park Service ↗1965–1970
Delano's grape campaign
Farmworkers combined strikes, boycotts, marches, and organizing. Collective bargaining agreements followed in 1970. Consumer solidarity strengthened a campaign led by workers.
National Park Service ↗Refusal is one nonviolent lever among several. Voting, organizing, litigation, labor action, public oversight, and building alternatives can reinforce it. Corporate-boycott research also identifies reputational pressure as an important mechanism. Research context ↗
1980s
Anti-apartheid divestment
Campaigns carried economic pressure into universities and institutional investment portfolios. In 1987, Smithsonian regents voted to divest $32 million in holdings in companies operating in South Africa. The decision carried organized public pressure into an institution’s investment policy.
What transfers from these campaigns?
Specific demands. Trusted organizers. Practical support for participants. Sustained public visibility. Review dates and a credible way to recognize concessions. The goal is to make a change in conduct more attractive than continued resistance.
Ask workers and affected communities what support they need. A campaign can hurt frontline employees or independent retailers before it changes executive decisions. Mutual aid and clear targeting help keep participation sustainable.
Many brands.
Fewer centers of power.
A different label can lead back to the same company. Explore the connections before deciding where to direct your spending.
51 corporate groups272 mapped portfolio entries9 sectorsReviewed October 8, 2026 UTC
Selected portfolios span food, household goods, healthcare, agriculture, finance, energy, defense, news and digital platforms. Counts refer to mapped entries; a shared product can appear under more than one commercial partner.
Select a brand node to inspect its connection. The diagram adapts to your screen; Text view provides a compact list.
Before you switch
New label. Same owner?
Compare two names before redirecting your spending. A change of brand may leave the parent company unchanged.
Compare parent companies, commercial ties and voting structures. Product rights and availability vary by country. A clinician or pharmacist can advise on the suitability of treatment alternatives.
Recent changes that older ownership charts miss
Corteva → Vylor / October 2026
Corteva completed the separation of its seed business into independent Vylor on October 1, 2026. Pioneer, Brevant, and other selected seed brands are mapped to Vylor. Crop-protection products remain in the Corteva record.
Johnson & Johnson → Kenvue
J&J’s former consumer-health business separated in 2023; J&J disposed of its remaining Kenvue shares in May 2024. Kenvue became the corporate home of the separated consumer-health portfolio.
Mars + Kellanova
Mars completed its Kellanova acquisition on December 11, 2025. Pringles, Cheez-It, Pop-Tarts, Rice Krispies Treats, and RXBAR are mapped through Kellanova to Mars.
Completion announcement ↗Unilever + Magnum
Magnum became a separate listed company in December 2025. Unilever’s June 2026 filing records a retained 19.85% equity stake. That minority interest is distinct from control of the whole company.
Dated ownership record ↗Unilever’s Foods combination with McCormick remains a proposed transaction in the reviewed record, with completion expected by mid-2027 subject to conditions.
Transaction status ↗What each connection means
Solid branches show recorded portfolio or corporate relationships; dashed copper branches identify shared commercial products. “Via” labels name intermediate businesses. Select a node for its relationship type, territorial scope and shared-rights details.
Shareholders sit above the corporate-parent layer. Selected control records identify voting blocks, enhanced share rights and board-election powers. Asset managers may vote shares held for fund investors; the fund mandate and proxy record show how those rights are exercised.
Healthcare evidence dossier
FTC staff’s January 2025 interim report examined specialty generic drugs dispensed during 2017–2022. It found over $7.3 billion in dispensing revenue above estimated acquisition costs at pharmacies affiliated with the three largest PBMs. The estimate describes a dispensing spread before other expenses in that specialty-generic sample.
Insurance is a chokepoint.
Insurance sits where money, treatment and permission meet. Networks determine which providers are accessible. Benefit rules shape what is covered. Authorization decisions can turn a clinical recommendation into a negotiation over payment.
01 / Money enters
Households, employers, public programs
Premiums, plan-administration fees and public-program payments.
02 / The gate
Insurer / plan administrator
Networks · benefits · claims · prior authorization
03 / Money moves
Care, medicines & services
Payments to providers and pharmacies; administration and margin within the financing model.
Conceptual flow. In an integrated group, affiliated pharmacies and care providers can receive payments within the same corporate family.
One group. Several revenue streams.
Humana’s CenterWell segment recorded $17.7 billion from transactions with other Humana segments and $4.8 billion from external customers in 2025. Pharmacy, primary care and home health sit alongside the insurance business.
Intersegment transactions are eliminated in consolidated accounts. The figures show internal financial flows.
Public money, private contracts.
Medicaid managed-care organizations receive fixed monthly payments per enrollee from state agencies. Medicare Advantage also channels public financing through private plans.
MedPAC projected $615 billion in Medicare Advantage payments in 2026, including an estimated $76 billion above spending for comparable beneficiaries in traditional Medicare. These program payments cover care, supplemental benefits, administration and margins.
CMS Medicaid managed care ↗ · MedPAC March 2026 Medicare Advantage status report ↗
HHS OIG skilled-nursing prior-authorization review ↗
Follow the insurance family.
| Corporate group | Insurance, administration & care businesses |
|---|---|
| UnitedHealth Group ↗ | UnitedHealthcare → insurance · Optum → health services |
| CVS Health ↗ | Aetna → insurance · CVS Caremark → PBM · CVS Pharmacy → dispensing |
| The Cigna Group ↗ | Cigna Healthcare → insurance · Evernorth → Express Scripts / Accredo |
| Elevance Health ↗ | Anthem / Wellpoint → health plans · Carelon → pharmacy and care services |
| Humana ↗ | Humana → insurance · CenterWell → pharmacy, primary care and home health |
| Centene ↗ | Ambetter → Marketplace · Wellcare → Medicare · local plans → Medicaid |
| Health Care Service Corporation ↗ | State BCBS plans · HealthSpring → Medicare · CareAllies / Luminare → services |
The contract can connect two different groups
Elevance’s June 2026 filing says CarelonRx delegates certain core pharmacy services to CVS subsidiary CaremarkPCS under an agreement extending through December 31, 2027. Ownership is one layer of the system; service contracts create another.
Follow revenue, costs and margins
Commercial medical-loss-ratio rules generally require 80% of individual and small-group premiums, or 85% of large-group premiums, to fund medical care and quality improvement, with rebates for shortfalls. The remainder supports administration and profit under the applicable calculation. Self-funded employer plans follow a different framework.
For an integrated group, examine insurance results together with the costs and revenues of its pharmacy and provider businesses. A useful financial model identifies which entity receives each payment and what expenses it must cover.
CMS commercial medical-loss-ratio rules ↗ · CMS MLR technical guidance, April 20 2012 ↗
People move between institutions
The revolving door.
Senior careers connect corporate management, public oversight and industry advocacy. Policy knowledge and professional networks travel with those appointments. Accountability begins with a dated record of roles, financial interests, recusals and decisions.
Andy Slavitt
Optum → CMS
Optum’s former group executive vice president joined CMS in 2014 and later became acting administrator.
Appointment record ↗ · Congressional record ↗Marilyn Tavenner
CMS → AHIP
After leaving CMS in February 2015, Tavenner was elected president and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans on July 15, 2015.
Appointment record ↗Scott Gottlieb
FDA → Pfizer board
After serving as FDA commissioner from 2017 to 2019, Gottlieb joined Pfizer’s board on June 27, 2019, including its regulatory-and-compliance and science-and-technology committees.
Appointment record ↗Appointment records establish the career path; policy and enforcement records show how public authority was exercised.
Patents, portfolios & shared rights.
Pfizer, Moderna and other drugmakers develop and market products through research, acquisitions and licensing. Patents and FDA marketing exclusivity provide different forms of protection and can overlap.
Pfizer and BioNTech collaborate on Comirnaty; Lilly and Boehringer Ingelheim collaborate on Jardiance. Shared commercial rights appear as dashed connections in the atlas.
FDA: patents and exclusivity ↗Put the demand in the contract.
Employers, unions and public agencies purchase coverage at scale. Collective demands can focus on denial and appeal data, pharmacy-contract transparency, adequate provider networks and independent review.
CMS requires specified payers to publish annual prior-authorization metrics for covered medical items and services. That public record gives organizers a starting point for comparing access.
CMS prior-authorization reporting requirements, updated September21 2026 ↗
Your time also sustains a system.
A subscription pays a publisher. A viewing habit attracts advertisers. A feed gives a platform information about what holds your attention. Follow all three, and a daily routine becomes a map of economic support.
Produce
Newsrooms & studios
Reporting and programming are produced, commissioned and licensed.
Distribute
Networks, search & feeds
Carriage, recommendations and rankings shape which material reaches an audience.
Monetize
Audience & advertisers
Subscriptions, advertising, distribution fees and licensing send value back through the system.
A conceptual model of production, distribution and revenue. Specific ownership and control records follow.
The media property board
Different mastheads. Traceable owners.
Start with a familiar outlet, follow its corporate parent, then examine the voting structure above it. Each property card opens the same sourced atlas used for food, healthcare and other industries.
PROPERTY 01NEWS + MEDIA
Skydance
CBS News · CNN · Paramount+ · HBO Max
PROPERTY 02NEWS + MEDIA
Fox Corporation
FOX News · FOX Business · FOX Nation · Tubi
PROPERTY 03NEWS + MEDIA
News Corp
The Wall Street Journal · Barron’s · MarketWatch · New York Post
PROPERTY 04NEWS + MEDIA
The Walt Disney Company
ABC · ABC News · ESPN
PROPERTY 05NEWS + MEDIA
Comcast
NBC News · Telemundo · Peacock · Sky
PROPERTY 06NEWS + MEDIA
Versant Media Group
MS NOW · CNBC · USA Network · E!
PROPERTY 07NEWS + MEDIA
The New York Times Company
The New York Times · The Athletic · Wirecutter · NYT Games
PROPERTY 08NEWS + MEDIA
Thomson Reuters
Reuters · Reuters Connect
PROPERTY 09NEWS + MEDIA
Nash Holdings / Jeff Bezos
The Washington Post
The board changes.
Paramount completed its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery on October 6, 2026; the combined company, Skydance, contains CBS News and CNN. Versant became independent of Comcast on January 2, 2026 and houses MS NOW and CNBC. NBC News remains within NBCUniversal/Comcast; the proposed NBCUniversal/Sky separation is expected around June 2027, subject to conditions.
Skydance closing ↗ · Versant separation ↗ · Comcast proposal ↗
Above the logo: who holds the votes?
A public listing can coexist with concentrated decision-making rights. These records distinguish a shareholding from voting power and the power to elect directors.
| Company | Holder & mechanism | Documented rights |
|---|---|---|
| Skydance ↗ | Ellison family + RedBird Voting Class A stock | Together hold 100% of voting shares of the combined company. As of 2026-10-06 · Record ↗ |
| Fox Corporation ↗ | LGC Holdco / Cruden 2 Class B voting block | 38.76% of Class B; votes generally directed by the Cruden 2 director appointed by Lachlan Murdoch. As of 2026-09-14 · Record ↗ |
| News Corp ↗ | LGC Holdco / Cruden 2 Class B voting block | 34.8% of Class B; votes generally directed by the Cruden 2 director appointed by Lachlan Murdoch. As of 2026-08-28 · Record ↗ |
| Comcast ↗ | Brian L. Roberts Enhanced Class B voting rights | Generally non-dilutable 33⅓% of combined voting power. As of 2026-04-08 · Record ↗ |
| Versant Media Group ↗ | Brian L. Roberts Enhanced Class B voting rights | Generally non-dilutable 33⅓% of combined voting power. As of 2026-04-14 · Record ↗ |
| The New York Times Company ↗ | Ochs-Sulzberger Family Trust Board-election rights | Approximately 95% of Class B shares; ability to elect 70% of directors. As of 2025-12-31 · Record ↗ |
| Thomson Reuters ↗ | Woodbridge / Thomson family Majority common-share ownership | Approximately 71% of common shares. As of 2026-04-13 · Record ↗ |
| Nash Holdings / Jeff Bezos ↗ | Jeff Bezos Private ownership | The Washington Post is personally held through Nash Holdings. As of 2026-10-08 · Record ↗ |
| Meta Platforms ↗ | Mark Zuckerberg Majority voting power | Voting control over matters submitted to shareholders, including director elections. As of 2026-06-30 · Record ↗ |
Fox and News Corp share a Murdoch-family voting structure through LGC Holdco. Comcast and Versant both give Brian Roberts enhanced voting rights. These are named connections across distinct corporate groups.
The platform is another layer of ownership.
Alphabet / Google
YouTube · Google Search · Google Ad Manager
Google Services combines search, video, advertising tools and subscriptions. YouTube earns advertising and subscription revenue and pays content providers through licensing and revenue arrangements.
Open platform map ↗Meta Platforms
Facebook · Instagram · Messenger · WhatsApp
Meta’s Family of Apps includes Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp. Its June 2026 filing describes Mark Zuckerberg’s majority voting power and consequent control over matters submitted to shareholders.
Open platform map ↗Amazon
Prime Video · Twitch · Amazon Ads
Amazon connects retail, video subscriptions, livestreaming and advertising. Its advertising business sells sponsored, display and video placements; its media services also earn subscription and content revenue.
Open platform map ↗FTC staff’s 2024 study documented extensive data collection and business incentives to monetize personal information through targeted advertising. FTC research ↗
Follow the social and economic structure
| Layer | Connection to examine | Record to seek |
|---|---|---|
| Governance | Voting rights, director appointments, ownership trusts | Proxy statements, annual filings, trust and share-class disclosures |
| Finance | Advertising, subscriptions, distribution and licensing | Revenue disclosures, carriage agreements, sponsorship labels |
| Distribution | Search rankings, recommendations, syndication | Platform policies, licensing terms and referral data |
| Professional networks | Board memberships and careers across companies or public institutions | Dated biographies, appointment records and conflict disclosures |
| Editorial decisions | Commissioning, corrections, staffing and newsroom policy | Published policies and documented decisions concerning a specific story or institution |
Ownership gives the investigation its structure. Editorial influence is evaluated through documented decisions, budgets and policies; a source’s reporting can then be judged on its evidence.
Make attention deliberate
Give your week a different budget.
- List the recurring habits. Record subscriptions, feeds, channels and notifications.
- Trace both layers. Identify the publisher and the platform delivering it.
- Choose a standard. Look for transparent funding, linked evidence, corrections and useful reporting.
- Redirect recurring support. Move time and subscription spending toward institutions that meet that standard; review the choice regularly.
Economic agency grows through coordination. Shared research, collective purchasing and support for alternative institutions turn individual habits into sustained pressure alongside civic organizing.
Model coordinated withdrawal.
Illustrative spending redirected
Estimate how much participating retail spending moves outside a selected corporate group.
Assumes constant spending and average participation over the period. No automatic inference about corporate viability.
Read the model as a scenario, not a prediction
For 1,000 people redirecting $100 per month for six months, 70% average participation and 20% returning to the same parent produce $336,000 in modeled outside-parent spending. If 60% returns to that parent, the result falls to $168,000. Ownership research changes the scenario even when the number of participants stays the same.
Retail spending includes distributors, retailers and taxes. Translating it into a manufacturer’s revenue or profit requires additional data. Reputational effects, worker organizing, legal action and institutional procurement sit outside this calculation.
Track participation estimates and documented spending changes alongside company-wide sales. Assess results against other changes in demand, pricing and market conditions.
Educate. Coordinate.
Withdraw. Rebuild.
A boycott needs a shared plan. Teach people who receives their money, identify a change the target can make, and prepare alternatives before asking people to participate.
Name the conduct
Use a documented practice and a responsible organization. Preserve dates, scope, and the organization's response.
Set the demand
Choose an observable change: transparent contract terms, a published appeals standard, or a verifiable policy revision.
Build the alternative
Find genuinely separate suppliers and workable services. Account for price, distance, disability, employment, and essential needs.
Coordinate and document
Set a start date, a review date, a clear demand, and a small set of shared materials. Track participation and redirected spending without collecting unnecessary personal data. Keep participants informed about progress and changes.
Define the exit condition
State what ends the boycott. Verify implementation, acknowledge concessions, and revise the campaign when evidence changes.
Healthcare: protect participants
Build participation around continuity of care and coverage. Support appeals, document access barriers and press plan sponsors for enforceable contract changes. Discuss treatment alternatives with a clinician or pharmacist. Direct primary care and cash payment leave major medical costs to be covered separately.
Canceling Marketplace coverage can leave someone unable to re-enroll until open enrollment unless they qualify for special enrollment. Preserve effective coverage while exploring changes; a sustainable campaign protects participants from avoidable medical and financial harm.
A campaign brief people can actually use
01 / Evidence
One documented practice
Save the source, date, affected market, responsible entity, and any response. Distinguish an allegation from a finding.
02 / Demand
One observable change
Specify who can act and what they should publish, revise, or stop. Choose a review date.
03 / Participation
A workable alternative
Check the parent, affordability, transport, accessibility, and supply capacity. Offer options for people who cannot switch.
04 / Accountability
A public progress record
Report participation honestly, correct ownership errors, document concessions, and explain when the campaign ends.
Example demand structure: “By [date], [decision-maker] will publish [specific information] and implement [verifiable change]. We will review progress using [named evidence].”
Conviction needs a record.
Ownership facts establish a relationship. Research findings have a defined sample and method. Allegations require attribution. Interpretations are arguments to examine. Scenarios are calculations under assumptions. These categories should remain visible as this exhibition grows.
Insurance, media & ownership edition • October 8, 2026 • Sources accompany claims and every corporate family. Ownership records are a dated snapshot; portfolios and proposed transactions require rechecking before campaign decisions.
Corporate source register
Research method and relationship types
Current portfolio: an association reported by a company or filing. Medicine listings may include licensing or commercial partnerships.
Historical succession: a dated merger, breakup or acquisition, recorded with the entities and assets involved.
Market concentration: a measured share in a named product, territory and time period, with the denominator and source attached.
Accountability: a specific practice or finding, evaluated through its evidence, affected communities and responsible decision-makers.
Company sources establish what firms say about their structure and portfolios; regulatory records and independent historical institutions support competition and historical claims. The downloadable JSON preserves sources, relationship types, historical transactions, voting-control records and dated career moves.