How Closely Connected are the Most Powerful Corporations in America?

How Closely Connected are the Most Powerful Corporations in America?

Conspiracy theorists allege that the world’s most rich and powerful people have secret meetings at places like Bilderberg or Bohemian Grove, or that one can find rooms on Wall Street or in DC where world-changing deals go down amidst a cloud of cigar smoke.

While there is still debate as to the true extent of the above claims, even the most skeptical of us can agree that the most powerful executives between Wall Street and the biggest corporations in America are intimately connected. Government officials are also in that web, but that’s a project for another day.

The above visualization looks at the directors of 30 of America’s largest publicly traded corporations on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Of this group, there are a grand total of three companies that do not share board members with other companies in the index.

All other companies have board members like Ronald Williams or Kenneth Chenault, who connect the dots. Williams used to run Aetna, but now sits on the boards of Boeing, Johnson & Johnson, and American Express. Chenault is the CEO and chairman of American Express, but also sits on the boards of IBM and Procter & Gamble.

Looking at the company-level, one can easily see a corporation such as Exxon Mobil having two connections with American Express, or single connections to JP Morgan, Walmart, Merck, Caterpillar, and Traveler’s Insurance.

Original graphic by: Info We Trust