BlackRock CEO Larry Fink delivered a stern message to the global elite at the opening of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland: Unchecked growth in artificial intelligence could hit the world’s working and professional classes. Exceed He warned that this could be capitalism’s next major failure after 30 years of post-Cold War dominance, failing to deliver benefits to ordinary people in society.
in his opening remarks The billionaire boss of one of the world’s largest asset managers, often referred to as “Wall Street’s,” told a gathering of thousands of executives and global leaders on Tuesday.master of the universe” – He said that when those in power discuss the future of artificial intelligence, they risk abandoning the vast majority of the world’s population, just as they did to much of the previous generation.
“Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, more wealth has been created than at any time in human history, but in advanced economies, wealth has accumulated for far fewer people than any healthy society can ultimately sustain,” Fink said.
Fink has used his annual BlackRock letters and annual appearances in Davos to set the agenda for a more progressive capitalism, even one that could be said to be “woke,” which has made him at times a spokesman for ESG and stakeholder capitalism. Fink warned that the benefits of the tremendous wealth creation since the 1990s were not being shared equitably. He added that the capitalist ideology that drives the development and implementation of AI may come at the expense of the majority of working-class people.
“Early benefits are flowing to model owners, data owners and infrastructure owners,” Fink said. “The open question is: If AI does to white-collar workers what globalization did to blue-collar workers, what will happen to everyone else? We need to confront this head-on today. This has nothing to do with the future. The future is now.”
Fink’s past criticisms of capitalism
Fink, who was appointed interim co-chairman of the World Economic Forum in August 2025, succeeding founder Klaus Schwab, has long supported reinventing capitalism and sees it as a responsibility for large asset managers like his. funk used to be Promote the importance of environmental, social and governance (ESG) investingand think Climate change is reshaping financeexecutives urgently need to reallocate capital in response to the crisis. in a 2022 Letter In a note to investors published the day before the Davos summit, Fink emphasized a model of “stakeholder capitalism” in which a company’s mission is to serve not only shareholders but also employees, consumers and the public.
Fink’s new primacy in Davos, first time without Schwab accused of spending more than $1 millionAllegations of questionable travel spending, as well as workplace misconduct and research report manipulation, were made to the World Economic Forum. The BlackRock CEO stressed that the meeting needed to prove its legitimacy, in part by showing that it cares not only about the company and the country’s rapid growth, but also about the economic welfare of its employees and citizens.
“Many of the people most affected by what we’re talking about here will never come to this conference,” Fink said. “This is the core tension of this forum. Davos is a gathering of elites trying to shape a world that belongs to everyone.”
Although BlackRock announced in early 2025 that Many diversity, equity and inclusion regressions Fink is once again using his spotlight to call on leaders to change their capitalist sensibilities, this time on how they imagine a future with artificial intelligence, compared to goals set a few years ago.
The price of the AI boom
Last year, Morningstar analysts discovered 34 AI stocks, including Amazon, letterand Microsoft, Soar 50.8% in 2025. The wealth of artificial intelligence companies and investors has soared over the past year. Bloomberg Billionaires IndexLast year, the median net worth of the 50 richest Americans grew by nearly $10 billion. For example, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will have added $101 billion and $92 billion respectively in 2025.
However, the BlackRock CEO noted that these gains are reserved for the wealthiest few, alluding to a K-shaped economy in which the rich get richer while the poor continue to struggle: Simply put, the bottom half of America is not profiting from the AI race. Although Fink did not get into the politics of utility companies setting electricity prices, poor people seem actually pay a higher bill Support data centers to drive the prosperity of artificial intelligence. According to data from the Federal Reserve, poorer people Owns about 1% of stock market wealthequivalent to about 165 million people owning $628 billion in stocks. In contrast, the richest 1% of households own nearly 50% of business equity.
Fink’s description of the post-Cold War era as one of rising inequality represents the mainstreaming of a once niche view that has become increasingly mainstream in the 21st century. Although the West’s victory over communism was seen as the final victory of capitalism, as Francis Fukuyama summarized The end of history and the last manhistory actually continues. Through the integration of socialism and capitalism, China has unprecedentedly emerged as an economic superpower.”Have Chinese characteristics,” complicates the narrative, as do the inequalities Fink mentions.
An internal critic of the post-Cold War world order is military veteran and historian Andrew Bacevich, who likened the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 to “akin to removing the speed limiter on an internal combustion engine.” Bacevich’s 2020 book Age of Fantasy: How America squandered its Cold War victoryan early expression of the once niche view Fink endorsed on Tuesday.
What the growth of artificial intelligence means for workers
Likewise, the AI boom poses risks to workers beyond who has a stake in the tech industry’s growth. Nobel Prize winner and “Godfather of Artificial Intelligence” Geoffrey Hinton has previously warned that the explosion of wealth is only available to a few. at the expense of white-collar workerswho will be replaced by technology.
“The reality is that the rich are going to use AI to replace workers,” Hinton said in September. “It’s going to create massive unemployment and huge increases in profits. It’s going to make a few people richer and the majority poorer. That’s not the fault of AI, it’s the fault of the capitalist system.”
Some companies have tended to cut jobs to increase profits, including enterprise software company IgniteTech. CEO Eric Vaughn Fired nearly 80% of employees By early 2023, according to data reviewed wealth. Vaughn said the layoffs come during an inflection point in the tech industry, where failure to effectively adopt artificial intelligence could be fatal for companies. He told the outlet he has since been rehired in all of those roles and would make the same choice again today wealth.
Fink believes that maintaining a white-collar workforce will depend on the world’s most powerful people crafting a workable plan that ignores the criticism of capitalism that has so far largely benefited them.
“There are now abstractions about the future of work, but with solid plans for broad participation in these outcomes, that will be the test,” Fink said. “Capitalism can evolve so that more people become owners of growth rather than bystanders.”