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Norway has frozen the work of its sovereign wealth fund’s council for ethics to avoid potential sell-offs of major U.S. technology companies, including Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet, the parent company of Google. The government says the action is needed to protect the integrity and stability of the $2.1 trillion fund, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, amid escalating political tension over Israel’s war in Gaza and U.S. diplomatic pressure. The Norwegian government’s finance minister, Jens Stoltenberg, stated on Tuesday that Norway’s parliament had passed an urgent measure to suspend the ethics council, pending the country’s review of rules for ethical investing. He said that the current system could have compelled the fund to divest from major technology companies over their alleged roles in Israeli military operations and surveillance programs. Stoltenberg stated that an independent body could potentially compel the fund to sell its holdings in some of the world’s largest companies, noting that such a move would compromise the fund’s objectives of remaining broad and globally diversified. Among the funds managed by Norges Bank Investment Management — an arm of Norway’s central bank that manages the Government Pension Fund Global, and which acquired shares in more than 9,000 companies, U.S. tech giants among them- Alphabet shares ranked fifth in value, behind stakes in Microsoft Corp., Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc., and Facebook Inc. These are the top companies that account for over 15% of the fund’s combined equity holdings. To be compelled to withdraw from them would leave the fund with a significantly more unbalanced picture globally, and the economic foundations of Norway’s state welfare arrangements, which rely on revenues from the fund for around a quarter of its annual budget, would also suffer as a result. Tensions rise over Israel and U.S. pressure The freeze comes after months of wrangling…

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Filed under: News - @ November 5, 2025 1:28 am