Just as President Biden experienced the limits of federal power to accelerate the clean-energy transition, President Trump is learning the limits of big government to stop it. In America, market forces still eclipse political theater, especially when the outcome means cheaper power, better tech, and lower risk.
The anti-ESG showcase fund DRLL, launched by Vivek Ramaswamy to support his political ambitions, has lagged the market since inception and has been negative over the last 12 months, even as the S&P 500 (SPY) posted 19% gains in the previous 12 months. Once again, attempts to use other people’s money to make a political point fails spectacularly — and at a cost to investors who fall for false political narratives detached from market realities.
In 2023, I wrote that political efforts to roll back progress would “crumble against the wall of economic reality.” The same cost curves that powered the last rally are still bending: cheaper solar and storage, better capacity factors, maturing supply chains, and a capital stack (tax equity, infrastructure funds, green bonds) that keeps filling even as emotional rhetoric swirls.
It’s time to stop fretting about an imagined end to clean energy finance and get back to the business of building the future—grid upgrades, storage, efficiency, clean generation, low-carbon materials, and procurement that matches long-term corporate strategy. Investors from pension committees to index providers to hedge funds have already moved their money to capitalize a more profitable future.
While the political winds may seem strong, market forces are a hurricane in comparison and will inevitably prevail over politics. This is because voters and investors want the same thing: cheaper, cleaner, less volatile energy—and credible plans to deliver it. It’s where capital is flowing. It’s where companies are executing. And it’s where responsible shareholders like us will keep pushing—quietly when we can, loudly when we must—until the transition that smart money knows is coming is the economy we live in.
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