Investigation · Premium
The Metals Monopoly: Who Really Owns the Energy Transition
Nine of every ten rare earths pass through Chinese refineries. Half the world's heavy rare earths come from rebel-held mines in Myanmar. The DRC just halved the cobalt the world can buy. By Lin Yue.
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Investigation · Free
The Five Pyramids: Who Controls the Ground Beneath the Harvest
Who decides whether the world eats? We started with the three letters that feed eight billion people — N, P, K — and kept going: four companies hold the genetics, five traders move the grain, and the land and water themselves are being bought. Five pyramids, each narrowing to a handful of hands. By Younesse Bouziani.
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Investigation · Premium
Strait of Hormuz: The Arithmetic of Closure
What does a Hormuz closure actually cost? We ran the arithmetic nobody in the West will do on the record: twenty million barrels a day through one 33-kilometre throat — spare capacity, shadow fleets, and the insurance math, in full. By Khalid Al-Harbi.
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Investigation · Premium
The Settlement Grid: Life After the Dollar's Plumbing
The discovery: the parallel rails are already installed. mBridge, CIPS, UPI, PIX — inventoried piece by piece. Nobody is demolishing the dollar. They are making it unnecessary. By Lin Yue.
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Investigation · Premium
The Two Chokepoints Inside Every Chip
How did the digital century come to balance on three addresses? We mapped them: one Dutch company prints the machines, one Taiwanese company prints the chips, China refines the graphite. Three owners, three vulnerabilities. By Aiko Mori.
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Investigation · Premium
The Smelter Trap: Why Owning the Mine Is Not Enough
Who really owns the world's copper? We followed the ore past the mine gate and found the answer is the furnace, not the hole in the ground. Smelter fees at historic lows, Western ore shipped east. By Kate Harrison.
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Investigation · Coming soon
The Three Funds That Own Everything
BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street: thirty-one trillion dollars under management, the largest shareholder in 88% of the S&P 500, and a vote that never leaves the room. They cannot sell — so they vote. With your money. By Whitfield.
Investigation · Coming soon
The Two Companies Without Which the World Stops
TSMC prints seventy percent of the world's chips; ASML builds the only machines that can print them. Ninety-two percent of advanced logic sits on one island. The tightest chokepoint in the global economy. By Aiko Mori.
Investigation · Coming soon
The Oil Traders in the Shadows
Vitol, Trafigura, Mercuria, Gunvor: $343 billion of turnover, 8 million barrels a day, $45 billion of five-year profit — and a bribery ledger in the hundreds of millions. The private partnerships that move a tenth of the world's oil. By Khalid Al-Harbi.
Investigation · Coming soon
The Four Families: Who Really Sets the Price of Your Bread
Four companies move most of the world's traded grain. Four families — one of them a state — own the machine that decides what your loaf costs. The pricing mechanism, exposed piece by piece. By Lucía Cárdenas.
Investigation · Coming soon
The Cables Under the Ocean: Who Owns the Internet's Spine
Over 99% of intercontinental data rides undersea fiber. Two American hyperscalers, three builders, and the landing stations where empires meet — the map of the internet's spine, with every owner named. By Aiko Mori.
Investigation · Coming soon
Cobalt's Child Mines
The DRC produces 76% of the world's cobalt; CMOC and Glencore dominate the mines; an estimated 40,000 children work in them. The export ban, the price spike from $21,500 to $57,320 a tonne, and the two companies at the top of the pyramid. By Lin Yue.
Investigation · Coming soon
The Five Primes
$771 billion of Pentagon contracts in five years to Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop Grumman, Boeing Defense and General Dynamics — more than double the diplomacy budget. James Taiclet, Christopher Calio, Kathy Warden, Kelly Ortberg and Phebe Novakovic head the five majors. By Whitfield.
Investigation · Coming soon
Insulin's Century-Old Ransom
Its inventors sold the patent for $1 in 1923; a century later a vial costs $300 and three companies — Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, Sanofi — collect the toll. David Ricks, Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen and Paul Hudson head the three toll-keepers. By Julien Moreau.
Investigation · Coming soon
The Algorithm Editors
Meta sells your attention ($160.6 billion in 2024 ads), Google sells your intent ($264.6 billion), TikTok sells your time (2.21 billion users). Three men — Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, Shou Zi Chew — decide what six billion people see first. By Tamar Levi.
Investigation · Coming soon
Hormuz: The World's Oil Throat
Twenty million barrels a day pass through a strait 33 kilometers wide; the bypass pipelines carry a thirteenth of the flow. IRGC Navy commander Alireza Tangsiri holds the knife; the US Fifth Fleet at Bahrain holds the counterweight. By Khalid Al-Harbi.
Investigation · Coming soon
The Federal Reserve's Shadow Empire
Twelve regional banks, one committee of twelve voters, a $6.7 trillion balance sheet — and the power to price every asset on earth. John Williams holds the permanent vote at the New York Fed; the Chair's term ended in May 2026. By Whitfield.
Investigation · Coming soon
The Meat Packers Oligopoly
Your steak passes through a toll booth before it reaches your plate. Four companies kill 85% of America’s cattle; the rancher keeps 34 cents of every beef dollar, the packers the rest. This is the choke point of the American dinner table. By The Magna Bureau.
Investigation · Coming soon
The Seven Sisters’ Grandchildren
In the 1950s, seven companies owned the world’s oil. OPEC killed them. Their grandchildren — ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, TotalEnergies — answered by swallowing $110 billion of rivals in two years. This is the new cartel: private, legal, and drilling for the peak. By The Magna Bureau.
Investigation · Coming soon
The Dollar Clearing Chokehold
Every dollar on earth eventually passes through New York. Two systems — one public, one private — move $6.3 trillion a day, and every inch of it sits under American law. This is how Washington turns plumbing into power. By The Magna Bureau.
Investigation · Coming soon
The Compute Landlords
One company sells the shovels, four giants own the mines, and a continent of 1.5 billion people gets the dust. Nvidia’s data-center revenue hit $193.7 billion last year — nearly nine of every ten dollars it makes — while Africa, home to 18% of humanity, holds less than 1% of the world’s data-center capacity. Intelligence has become real estate. Meet the landlords. By Lin Yue.
Investigation · Coming soon
The Merchants of Rearmament
€800 billion is on the table, the order books have never been fatter, and five companies are eating first. Rheinmetall’s backlog hit a record €73 billion; BAE’s £83.6 billion. Europe is rearming faster than at any moment since 1945 — and the merchants of this war economy have names, addresses, and chief executives. By Lukas Weber.
Investigation · Coming soon
The Aquifer Barons
Beneath the Texas plains, the Sahara, and the South American pampas lie oceans of water older than civilization — and they are being pumped like oil. One aquifer has lost 262 feet of water. Another is being drunk through 1,149 wells drilled half a kilometer deep. The barons of the underground are not coming. They are already here. By Lucía Cárdenas.
