Notice the change I’ve made there. This isn’t some kind of nefarious scheme by investment houses to turn Disney into a haven of child molesters.
The five largest mutual funds in the world are INDEX FUNDS — which means they own shares of the largest companies or bond issuers, regardless of who those companies happen to be. Companies like Vanguard and Fidelity own a lot of Disney stock because it is big enough to be part of any S&P 500 Index Fund, Total Stock Market Index Fund, etc.
Don’t fool yourself. The people who manage these funds have the most significant impact on the management of all the companies that they hold.
If I have shares in Vanguard Total Market Index Fund (VTSMX), I can’t vote for who is on the board of listed companies. I, in essence, give my proxy to the fund manager to vote for me for each one of the stocks that are owned by the fund. And that includes votes to oust a CEO or votes to hire a CEO. These funds, even ETFs or Index funds, are not hardly passive...an index fund may be relatively passive in the buying and selling of individual stocks but they’re not even close to passive when it comes to voting power.
Enter ESG scores assigned companies. If you have any question on that impact, look at what’s happened to Tesla since Elon Musk decided to make an offer for Twitter and, especially, since he decided to announce that he was voting Republican.