There are churches that collect tithes to keep the roof from collapsing. Then there is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, which collects tithes and squirrels them into an investment bunker so big it needs its own weather system. Ensign Peak Advisors is the church’s money engine. Not a charity pot. Not a rainy day jar. A full blown, tax sheltered, wall street predator wearing a choir robe.

And yes, your boy recently called himself Diesel Jesus on X, as a joke about Cummins needing to repent before they get forgiveness. Turns out I am late to the altar. There is already a Diesel Jesus, and he is not here for absolution either. He is here to count your money, hide it in shell companies, and buy shares in a diesel polluter on the side. Hollowed out sanctity, traded in bulk.

Cummins likes to talk like the planet is their customer. Ensign Peak likes to talk like God is their auditor. Together they are a couple slow dancing in a smoke filled hangar, insisting the smell is incense.

The Lord’s Portfolio, Locked in the Basement

Ensign Peak was set up in 1997 to manage the church’s surplus tithing. That surplus did not trickle. It flooded. For years the fund compounded in silence, ballooning into a stash widely estimated north of $100 billion. Think Vatican gold but with Bloomberg terminals and a compliance department that treats daylight like a skin condition.

Here is the rub. LDS members hand over ten percent of their income because they are told it powers the mission. The poor. The hungry. The spiritual plumbing of the world. Instead, a huge chunk of that cash has been warehoused in a long term investment fund that the church simply refused to be candid about. No annual public report for the people paying in. No tidy breakdown of what gets spent on humanitarian aid versus what gets rolled into stocks. Just trust us, we are good people, please keep paying.

That is not faith. That is a subscription model.

Shell Companies for Jesus

In February 2023 the US Securities and Exchange Commission finally prised the fund’s fingers off its own secrets. The SEC found that Ensign Peak used a network of shell companies for years to hide the size of its stock portfolio from public filings. Thirteen fake entities. Twenty plus years of camouflage. Paper masks so the world would not see how enormous the church’s war chest had become.

The church’s excuse was basically fear of awkward questions. Which is adorable. Imagine a company hiding billions from shareholders because it might feel a bit embarrassed at the AGM. That is what happened, only the AGM is Sunday and the shareholders are believers who were told their sacrifices were building heaven, not a covert hedge fund.

The penalty was $5 million. The kind of fine you pay with the spare change in your suit lining. If this is what regulators call deterrence, they should be forced to say it with a straight face into a mirror.

The Whistleblower Who Pulled the Curtain

Enter David Nielsen (yes, a Judas reference was considered and decided against), former Ensign Peak portfolio manager, who filed a detailed complaint saying the fund was violating its tax exempt status. His allegation was blunt: the money was not being used for charitable or religious purposes as required for a tax sheltered entity. It was being hoarded and occasionally redirected into for profit church ventures.

Two examples keep resurfacing like bodies in a lake.

One, a $600 million bailout for a failing church owned life insurance business in 2009. Two, about $1.4 billion poured into the City Creek Center mall in Salt Lake City, a glossy retail cathedral of handbags and steak dinners sitting near Temple Square. If that is “charity” then so is a Ferrari with a food bank sticker on the bonnet.

The church disputes Nielsen’s framing, but those transfers have been acknowledged. The core point stands. You do not build a private commercial empire on mandatory tithes, then call it sacred stewardship and expect nobody to notice the blood on the receipts.

Lawsuits, Then a Convenient Trap Door

Members sued. More than once. They argued that they were misled about what tithing funded. They wanted refunds, transparency, and an independent overseer for donations.

In April 2025 a federal judge dismissed one of the major class actions on statute of limitations grounds. Translation: the court did not bless the behaviour. It just said the complaint arrived too late for Utah’s fraud clock. Another case by donor James Huntsman also got tossed earlier. The legal system did what it often does with powerful institutions. It found a procedural exit and slipped out the back.

So Ensign Peak remains standing. Not vindicated. Just unpunished enough to keep quiet and keep compounding.

And Then They Bought Cummins Stock

Now to the bit that makes the collar itch.

Ensign Peak holds a meaningful stake in Cummins. Not symbolic. Not a rounding error. A proper, multi tens of millions position in a diesel giant that has already paid a record $1.675 billion penalty for emissions cheating. Cummins installed defeat devices on nearly a million Ram trucks. Software that lied to regulators while the exhaust went feral. They settled, admitted the conduct, and agreed to huge recalls.

So the church fund that preaches moral living is profiting from a company that gamed pollution laws and cooked the air for everyone downwind. That is not a “mixed portfolio”. That is a theological pratfall.

Cummins markets itself as “Destination Zero” while selling diesel like it is consecrated wine. Ensign Peak markets itself as righteous stewardship while buying into that diesel future. It is the same trick in two dialects. Tell the public it is salvation. Bank the cash when nobody is looking.

This is why TCAP targets shareholders. Cummins does not float alone. It is carried by institutions that choose to hold the bag. When the bag is full of diesel smoke and moral rot, you do not get to claim white gloves.

The Point of the Spotlight

Ensign Peak is not just a weird side story about a secretive church fortune. It is a case study in how power protects itself.

A tax sheltered behemoth is built from mandatory tithes.
It is hidden through shell companies.
It is lightly fined when caught.
It is defended as prudent stewardship.
It then invests in a company caught cheating emissions on a massive scale.

If you are an LDS member, your moral labour is being converted into financial muscle that props up polluters. If you are a Cummins investor, you are sharing a cap table with a fund that treats transparency like sin.

Diesel Jesus is not forgiving anyone here. Not Cummins. Not Ensign Peak. Not the whole pious profit machine that keeps the fumes flowing while preaching clean air.

Repentance would be selling the stake, opening the books, and using the hoard for actual human relief. Anything else is just Sunday theatre with a trading desk underneath.

Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project

Shareholder Spotlight : Ensign Peak’s Holy Hedge Fund and the Diesel Gospel of Cummins