Manhattan Institute
The most cross-funded group in the network — seven backers.
§ 1 · Background & fossil-fuel ties
By now, nearly 50 years into existence, the Manhattan Institute (MI) isn’t fooling anyone. Although it may tell the U.S. Supreme Court and public that its aim is to “foster greater economic choice,” that choice is narrowed to a few oligopolies and billionaires, who have historically funded the think tank to do their bidding. The truth is the Manhattan Institute is funded by ExxonMobil, and billionaires Charles Koch, Paul Singer, and John Paulson, according to financial records.
Paul Singer has a substantial financial interest in the outcome of the Suncor v. Boulder U.S. Supreme Court case. Since 2022-23 fiscal years, Singer’s foundation, the Paul E. Singer Foundation, has given nearly $4 million dollars to amici the Manhattan Institute, according to IRS disclosures. And aside from being chairman emeritus of Manhattan Institute, Singer is the founder and president of the hedge fund Elliott Management, which holds about $2.3 billion in Suncor shares.. Further, Suncor entered into an agreement with Elliott Management in 2022 that put new members on the Suncor board, as well as gave Elliott a say in the search for a new CEO.
The Manhattan Institute has also received approximately $1.61 million from National Philanthropic Trust between 2018 and 2024, according to IRS filings, connecting it back to the half a billion dollars invested by Singer in the same period.
Elliot Management has a history of holding multi-billion-dollar stakes in major fossil fuel companies such as Phillips 66. In 2025, the n fud accumulated around 5% of BP’s voting rights, making Elliott Management the company’s second-largest shareholder at the time.
Critically, Singer flew U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito aboard his private jet for a fishing vacation that was reportedly arranged by the conservative activist Leonard Leo and held at the property of a major conservative donor, according to a ProPublica investigation. Alito did not disclose the jet travel or the lodge stay. The controversy was compounded by the fact that Singer’s Elliott Management had subsequent business before the Supreme Court, and Alito didn’t recuse himself from any of the matters. The clearest example was Republic of Argentina v. NML Capital, involving an Elliott affiliate that had bought defaulted Argentine debt and was trying to force repayment. In 2014, the Supreme Court ruled 7–1 in Elliott’s favor, with Alito joining the majority. The ruling helped Elliott obtain leverage that eventually contributed to a $2.4 billion payout from Argentina.
The Manhattan Institute has long been supported by the same overlapping funding networks that appear throughout this report. Its funders include the Searle Freedom Trust ($9.0 million), Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation ($8.6 million), Sarah Scaife Foundation ($4.0 million), Koch-affiliated foundations (more than $3.4 million), DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund (more than $2.3 million combined), Leonard Leo's 85 Fund ($450,000), and the Koch-backed Stand Together Trust ($495,000 in 2022). Together, these grants place the Manhattan Institute at the center of the interconnected network of climate denial, dark-money, and fossil fuel funding examined in this report.
§ 2 · Record of fronting
The Institute used its platform to defend ExxonMobil during state investigations into whether the company misled the public about climate change. In 2016, MI published “Stifling Free Speech on Climate Change,” casting the Exxon investigations as a threat to free debate and linking them to scrutiny of climate skeptics.
Robert Bryce, a former Manhattan Institute senior fellow, wrote a book called, “Power Hungry: The Myths of "Green" Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future.” In it, he takes blind leaps of faith asserting that renewables are “high cost” and why the oil spill in the Gulf should not be used as an excuse to stop offshore drilling.
The Manhattan Institute continues to pen a number of articles in favor of dirty energy. A 2019 Wall Street Journal article by one of its energy fellows amplified arguments that blocking gas pipelines would hurt consumers, and that wind and solar were poor substitutes for more dispatchable generation. And it explicitly framed renewables as unrealistic and linked reliability concerns to the case for additional gas infrastructure.
The Manhattan Institute also published a report by the president of Continental Economics, “an economic and litigation consulting firm specializing in issues affecting the energy industry,” with experience working for “electric utilities, industry trade groups, and government energy policy and regulatory agencies.” The report attacks offshore wind economics and criticizes climate-oriented regulation.
§ 3 · The cover story, debunked
“Actions that erode the bedrock protections of the First Amendment are a clear and present danger, something that climate change is not.”
A lawsuit over whether a company knowingly misled consumers about the damages of climate change is not an infringement on speech. The claim uses free speech to avoid talking about climate change, which has been established as a clear and present danger.
After Winter Storm Uri, a Manhattan Institute article argued that the near-collapse of the Texas grid, “began with a near-total loss of output from that state’s mighty wind farms.”
Federal and independent assessments did not support that conclusion. FERC and NERC later found that 87% of unplanned generation outages due to fuel issues were related to natural gas, and AP and Reuters both published fact checks rejecting the claim that wind and solar were primarily to blame.