You obviously don’t know the story. During Edsel’s time, Henry Ford was still in control (Edsel was sick with cancer). The Ford Foundation before the grandkids was a modest charity for Michigan/local causes.
Today’s direction of the Ford Foundation is all “thanks” to Henry Ford’s grandkids. The Ford Foundation was never meant to be what it is today.
Henry Ford died 1947 and it was his grandchildren (not his son Edsel, who died in 1943) who went woke/SJW. For the Ford Motor Company, control passed to grandson Henry Ford II in 1945; he took it public in 1956, embraced unions (which Ford despised), and adopted progressive policies like diversity initiatives, marking early leftist influences via regulations and labor.
The Ford Foundation was co-founded modestly in 1936 for local Michigan charities. Post-death, it inherited massive company stock, swelling its assets. Grandchildren Henry II (trustee until 1976), Benson, and William commissioned reports for global expansion, moved it to New York in 1953, and divested stock by 1974 for independence. Henry II appointed McGeorge Bundy as president in 1966, channeling billions into civil rights, minority advocacy, reproductive rights, public media, anti-poverty programs, and radical arts — causes Ford would deem socialist.
Henry II resigned in 1976, criticizing the foundation's anti-capitalist bent and overreach — but he enabled it. Henry Ford’s son Edsel bore no blame, as changes postdated him. Ford’s fortune, a $16.8 billion endowment by 2023, is now funding progressive agendas that Ford himself abhorred.
