Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), a financial institution that collapsed last week after being focused more on a woke agenda than smart financial decisions, has donated more than $73 million to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.
After SVB’s collapse triggered a global banking crisis, reports began to emerge that the failed bank has been prioritizing far-left diversity policies and climate change over their financial responsibilities.
One such report showed that SVB did not have a chief risk operator for eight months of 2022 during the time when it was busy promoting the woke agenda. The bank instead spent that time period investing clients’ money in low-interest government bonds and securities, which proved to be their downfall when the Federal Reserve increased interest rates and the value of the bank’s assets fell while customers tried to withdraw funds.
“We knew it was financially mismanaged, but oh my gosh, this is probably the most woke bank in existence of mankind — or it was the most woke bank,” said Joel Griffith, financial fellow at the Heritage Foundation. “We should recognize the primary cause of this bank going belly up was just gross financial mismanagement.”
“They took depositors’ money, and they put this in long-term debt investments at record low-interest rates, and as any financial risk manager knows, if you have interest rates that increase, the value of those debt assets are actually going to decline,” Griffith explained.
It has since been discovered that one of the many woke agenda items that the bank focused on was the BLM movement, which received more than $73 million from SVB.
A new database of BLM funding published by the conservative Claremont Institute has revealed that the bank had donated $73,450,000 to the BLM movement.
SVB: A typical Democrat woke agenda conclave of Leftist incompetence. And we’re bailing them out?
🔥WATTERS: “They pledged $75 Million to BLM, and there’s ONE banker on the board; the rest are Clinton and Obama mega-donors!”
“Yellen appointed a woman to oversee the bank…on… https://t.co/KLjytdWLOC pic.twitter.com/FxItfXEzdM
— LionHearted (@LionHearted76) March 15, 2023
It is unclear what BLM did with the money.
A 2020 Corporate Responsibility Report showed that SVB also spent a lot of its money on other leftist causes, including $2.8 million on “gender parity innovation” and “diverse emerging talent.”
“In recent months, we’ve expanded our philanthropic giving through corporate donations and employee matching programs,” wrote SVB’s former CEO Greg Becker in an introductory letter attached to the report. “These programs focus on pandemic response, social justice, sustainability and supporting women, Black and Latinx emerging talent and other underrepresented groups.”
SVB’s collapse has since triggered a global banking crisis, causing more banks to collapse, resulting in a stock market dip, and leading to a run on banks.
