No. What's being floated in this thread is an absurd premise.
By that premise, Norway controls Microsoft and Apple because they own part of the companies via their sovereign fund. Microsoft by itself of course is worth as much as Norway's entire fund.
Snapchat is a publicly traded company, of which institutional money representing primarily US investors controls the dominant position in the company.
Reddit is minority owned by Tencent, they hold a small share of the company. If you own 5% of a company the size of Reddit, you have close to zero control over the company.
Tencent also does not own a controlling interest in Epic. Tim Sweeney all by himself is estimated to control more of Epic than Tencent does.
The only reason it seems absurd is because the level of interconnectedness in today’s society and the various entities in it is simply unprecedented.
While there may not be a grand conspiracy, it isn’t too far-fetched to suggest that organizations that specialize in espionage, sabotage and propaganda can figure out, or may already have figured out, how to pull the various levers at their disposal to achieve their goals.
>By that premise, Norway controls Microsoft and Apple because they own part of the companies
Even so, Norway's political/ideological/moral objectives are in line with the west's. There is a difference between the Norwegians having some influence in something, as opposed to the Chinese.
Norway is not s socialist state, it's a social democracy. Please do read up a bit on the difference as it's quite relevant to understanding politics today and in particular the confusion/conflation of concepts that are pushed in US discourse.
In a nutshell, the idea of social democracy is that you cannot have a democracy without ensuring all your citizens have the basics to live decently - food, healthcare, housing. It's a basic responsibility of the state that no one is left behind. This is very different from the concept of Socialism (as it is understood in the US context) which much more aims towards equalising.
