BlackRock, Blackstone Pressed to Detail AI-Driven Energy Profits

Recent takeovers of public utilities by BlackRock Inc. and Blackstone Inc. are drawing scrutiny from Democratic US senators, who are asking the firms to show whether they’re profiting from rising energy demands at consumers’ expense.

Wall Street investors and private equity firms “appear to be taking advantage of utilities’ regulated-monopoly status to rake in excess profits,” Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal and Independent Senator Bernie Sanders said in separate letters to the firms’ chief executive officers.

“Investors have typically viewed utility companies as reliable investments with a guaranteed rate of return,” but rapidly rising energy use from data ...