By Andrew Ross Sorkin
At what point do the CEOs of the largest companies in the United States tell President Donald Trump that enough is enough? Not yet, apparently.
On August 14th, Trump went on a tirade against Kenneth C. Frazier, chief executive of Merck, the pharmaceuticals giant. Frazier, one of the nation’s most prominent African-American chief executives, had announced through his company’s Twitter account that he was resigning from the president’s American Manufacturing Council in response to Trump’s refusal over the weekend to immediately and directly condemn the white supremacists and neo-Nazis carrying swastika flags in Charlottesville, Virginia. Trump had blamed the bigotry and violence—which left one anti-bigotry protester dead—“on all sides.”
“America’s leaders must honor our fundamental views by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy, which run counter to the American ideal that all people are created equal,” Frazier said.
Within minutes, Trump, in far less time that it took him to react to the violence in Charlottesville, was on Twitter criticizing Frazier.
The silence from the larger CEO community about Trump’s reaction to the situation in Charlottesville has been remarkably conspicuous, even as one of their own has now been attacked online by the president.
A few big-name corporate leaders released innocuous statements over the weekend condemning the violence by white supremacists in Charlottesville. But with the exception of Frazier, none appear to have directly condemned the president’s choice of words. (The president said at a news conference, after a barrage of blistering criticism, that “racism is evil.”)
The closest thing to a critique of Trump’s language from a United States CEO came from Lloyd Blankfein, chief executive of Goldman Sachs, who tweeted on Monday morning: “Lincoln: ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’ Isolate those who try to separate us. No equivalence w/ those who bring us together.”
Most companies these days spend countless hours talking about their culture and values. Just last week, Google publicly fired one of its engineers within days of his writing a memo that questioned whether “personality differences” between men and women led to there being fewer women engineers in the technology industry.
How can people like Adebayo O. Ogunlesi, a lead director of Goldman Sachs and an infrastructure investor, remain a member of Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum—a role highlighted on Ogunlesi’s company biography? How could Ogunlesi, an immigrant from Nigeria who was a clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall of the Supreme Court, not say anything?
As Marshall himself famously said, “Where you see wrong or inequality or injustice, speak out, because this is your country. This is your democracy.”
What about Indra Nooyi, the Indian-born chief executive of PepsiCo? She is a member the president’s business council and has long been a vocal advocate for minorities. The company said this year that it “does not tolerate bigotry or hate in any form.”
When I contacted her about Trump’s remarks over the weekend, a spokesman directed me to a tweet that clearly didn’t mention the president: “Heartbroken by the violence in #Charlottesville. Hate and intolerance are a betrayal of what we stand for as Americans.”
Privately, many chief executives say they are fuming, outraged by the president. (This after many of them campaigned to get on Trump’s committees.) But many are too scared to say anything publicly that could make them or their company a target of Trump’s wrath.
Indeed, Trump’s vitriol against Frazier and Merck—a company that depends on the government as a buyer for many of its drugs—will perhaps have an even greater chilling effect on other CEOs who may consider speaking out. (The potential for economic retribution against Merck also demonstrates just how brave Frazier was in taking a stand.)
Other CEOs, like Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, have contended that they consider it part of their patriotic duty to remain on the president’s business council, even when they disagree with things Trump says or does.
“It is very hard if you say, I’m going to go off an advisory group or not do a, b, c, because you disagree on one issue,” Dimon said in early June after Trump withdrew from the Paris climate agreement, a move Dimon was against. Elon Musk of Tesla and Robert Iger of Disney resigned from the council in protest.
“Honestly, no one is going to agree with every president or prime minister on every issue, so I don’t want to overreact to it,” Dimon said.
Lawrence Summers, who has served as Treasury secretary and president of Harvard University, said in response to Dimon’s rationale at the time to Bloomberg News: “At what point as a patriot is your allegiance to your country rather to your president? I’ve always thought of my allegiance as a patriot as being to my country.”
© 2017 The New York Times
Image credits: Stephen Crowley/The New York Times