When Norway discovered oil in the North Sea, it established a mechanism to share its wealth with citizens by creating dedicated accounts. Similarly, many oil-producing nations, including OPEC members, have adopted such practices. This pooled capital is known as a “sovereign wealth fund.” These funds wield significant influence because they invest in companies and can dramatically impact startups or entire economic sectors. Wealth managers for these funds typically purchase government bonds as part of their portfolios.
Recently, Norway’s $2.3 trillion Government Pension Fund Global sent a letter to its Finance Ministry proposing a reduction in government bond holdings from 70 percent to 50 percent of its bond index. This move would target U.S. Treasuries most heavily, with an estimated $80 billion cut from its $215 billion Treasury position. Additionally, the fund is considering increasing investments in unlisted private assets, and Norway’s parliament has already voted to review a 20-year ethical ban on investing in companies that produce components for nuclear weapons, such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Norway discloses such activities; most sovereign wealth funds do not.
This represents the core of Norway’s story: A small number of state-owned investment funds, managing trillions of dollars, are reshaping American finance, entertainment, and education with starkly uneven transparency. The Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute’s Linaburg-Maduell Transparency Index rates funds on a scale of 10 for public disclosure. Norway and the UAE’s Mubadala achieve perfect scores. In contrast, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which is one of the most active investors in American culture, scores only 6.
The PIF’s U.S. investments span Uber, Lucid, Live Nation, and a pending $500 million-plus stake in Endeavor, the talent agency representing Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. Its gaming subsidiary, Savvy Games Group, holds stakes across the industry and is now part of a consortium bidding for Electronic Arts in a potential $55 billion acquisition—the largest deal in gaming history. Saudi Arabia’s entertainment spending is linked by analysts to an image-rehabilitation effort following the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, an incident U.S. intelligence attributed to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Yet the PIF differs from most U.S. investment funds in one critical aspect: it is not required to disclose its full holdings.
Meanwhile, Qatar has provided American universities with roughly $7.7 billion since 1986 and over $1.1 billion in 2025 alone—more than any other country, including China—under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, which mandates disclosure of foreign gifts exceeding $250,000. Cornell University received $2.3 billion, primarily for its Weill Cornell Medicine campus in Doha; more than $100 million was reportedly channeled through a university research station to avoid full disclosure.
Between February and December 2025, universities reported over $2 billion in foreign funding. Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, UC Berkeley, and the University of Michigan are now under federal investigation for inaccurate or delayed disclosures. Scholars remain divided on the implications. Some view the raw figures as evidence of influence-buying; Barnard College’s Alexander Cooley describes country-of-origin totals without context on how the money is used as “a very crude snapshot” that “invites politicization.”
Enormous pools of state capital, managed by unelected fund managers who answer to foreign governments, now reside within American entertainment companies, research universities, and Treasury markets. The transparency of these investments hinges entirely on each fund’s voluntary choices and the disclosure laws of their home countries.