On August 10, 2022, Strive Asset Management launched “Strive U.S. Energy ETF” (DRLL). Just two weeks later on August 24 it already an impressive $268.45 million in assets under management. Strive was founded by the now well-known and ever visible anti-ESG/anti-Woke Mr. Vivek Ramaswamy and the less publicly exposed Mr. Anson Frericks. Licking its chops, an August 15 editorial in The Wall Street Journal, “The ESG Investing Backlash Has Arrived,” enthused that, “the Strive model is notable because it says it will use shareholder engagement and proxy voting to impress a non-ESG policy on companies.”

The tag line for Strive is “Excellence over politics.” (Couldn’t agree more but want to note that cuts both ways, Right and Left.) Their grave concern is that the world’s largest asset managers are telling “America’s public companies to adopt divisive social and political agendas that most Americans disagree with.” (No data are cited for how these asset managers are doing this or that most Americans disagree with these agendas.) They take “their fiduciary duty to their clients seriously” (so no different than any other asset manager because that’s the law). They do not exclude “’’bad-acting’ companies” (not sure what that means), “Because we believe in engagement over divestment” (I couldn’t agree more with this as well, which is also the case of the vast majority of asset managers unless given a specific client mandate).

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