Is Corporate America Going Maga?

Last week, Amazon announced plans to release a “behind the scenes” documentary about Melania Trump, produced by the future first lady herself. The tech giant paid $40 million for the exclusive deal just weeks after donating $1 million to her husband Donald Trump’s inauguration committee and committing to air it live on its Prime service.

The founder of Amazon before the November presidential election Jeff Bezos He also canceled his own Washington Post plan to endorse Trump’s Democratic challenger. Shortly after the election, he spoke highly of Trump’s “energy toward deregulation” and made a private pilgrimage to dinner with the incoming president at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Bezos’ rush to comfort Trump echoes that of corporate executives across America as tech billionaires, financiers and some of America’s leading consumer group leaders rush to adapt to more conservative oil following Trump’s election victory. and the Republican Party of both houses of Congress.

After the killing of George Floyd by the police in 2018, to support social justice. The corporate rush of 2020 is a mirror image; Companies Today, they are reshaping their relationships with their customers, employees and society.

Some activities, such as the parade of CEOs Trump In Florida, his contributions and efforts to do business with people in it seem designed to curry favor with a man known for attacking companies and executives he doesn’t like.

But the election precipitated a broader shift toward a more conservative social and political stance and an embrace of unfettered capitalism.

Companies are looting. Diversity, equity and inclusion Departments, cutting funding to diversity charities and withdrawing from climate change groups. They’re also purging anything that could be considered “active” from public statements, corporate documents and advertisements.

The election empowered some top executives to begin speaking out in support of conservative policies, from tax cuts to traditional gender roles.

“There are conservative pressures in this political climate, and people are waiting for a change in the administration and . . . Trier Bryant, former DEI executive at Goldman Sachs and Twitter, aligns their strategies with these expected policy changes.

Last week, social media group Meta illustrated all the developments at once. It dropped its content moderation policies, added longtime Trump friend and Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White to its board, reassigned its chief diversity officer to a new role, and dropped its goals to increase racial and gender diversity among its managers and presenters.

Founder Mark Zuckerberg later joined a podcast hosted by Joe Rogan, who supported Trump in the election, and lamented the rise of “culturally entrenched” companies. “I think developing a culture that respects violence a little bit has its merits,” Zuckerberg said.

Liberal politicians and investor activists panicked. Brad Lander, New York City comptroller and advocate for sustainable investment, said: “It’s very unfortunate that Trump is being bashed.” “We have seen many examples in history. This is how democracy and fundamental rights weaken over time.

But companies, executives and analysts argue that the reasons driving the changes are complex and reflect more than just a search for the incoming president.

Sentiment among customers has shifted, executives argue, and court rulings and state and federal regulatory investigations, particularly last year’s U.S. Supreme Court Banning affirmative action in colleges has cut diversity and climate programs.

For many, the new administration offers a welcome opportunity to roll back some of the tougher laws enacted during President Joe Biden’s administration and to shift tax and regulatory policy to their advantage.

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon praised the incoming Trump administration for “running a growth-y playbook.”

“I have every hope that this administration will run a very progressive agenda,” Solomon told Reuters at an event.

Tech leaders have made some high-profile gestures toward Trump and conservative values ​​in a preemptive effort to mend fences. Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Sundar Pichai and OpenAI’s Sam Altman all joined Metta Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Bezos in pledging $1 million to Trump’s graduation fund, while Pichai flew to Mar-a-Lago. Trump has previously claimed that Google “rigged” to hide positive coverage of him.

“It’s an expression of the lack of confidence and backbone of technology executives,” said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, senior associate dean of leadership studies at the Yale School of Management. He described his contribution to Trump’s inauguration as a “tithe plan” for the president-elect.

The financial sector is witnessing a change after Trump’s election. Climate change. All major Wall Street banks and several large fund managers have stopped industry groups seeking to use their financial resources to reduce carbon emissions.

BlackRock, the target of conservative state investigations and accusations over its early support for Sustainable Investment, last week cited legal and regulatory issues to pull out of the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative.

Even the way people on Wall Street communicate and interact is changing. Bankers and financiers who are outraged by Trump’s “doctrine of sleep” and feel they must censor themselves or change their language to avoid offending their younger colleagues, women, minorities or the disabled.

“I feel liberated,” said a senior banker. “We can say ‘delay’ and ‘labor’ without fear of cancellation. . . It is a new dawn.”

Some Wall Streeters feel they can openly embrace making money without showing any broader social goals. “Most of us don’t have to kiss ass because, like Trump, we love America and capitalism,” said one.

Consumer-facing groups are increasingly careful not to appear “triggered,” much less provoke boycotts of gay-friendly markets such as Target and Bud Light. That response was well before the election.

But the transition to the right is so fast that some groups are caught. After the recent terrorist attack in New Orleans, Tom Wilson, CEO of insurance group Allstate, made a critical comment: “We must overcome our addiction to divisiveness and negativity and come together stronger.”

Conservative activists accused Wilson, whose company was sponsoring a high-profile American football game in the city, of downplaying the killing while pushing progressive causes. Allstate tried to explain that the statement “reflects a broader commitment to foster trust and positivity in communities across the country.”

Another big corporate change was in DEI’s efforts, especially after the Supreme Court decided to strike down race-based college admissions in June 2023. Companies including Harley-Davidson, Ford and Molson Coors began scaling back their corporate diversification months later. After the decision, and Trump’s election win, the trickery became a flood.

Walmart stopped considering race and gender in awarding supplier contracts, halted racial equality training for employees and withdrew funding for the $100mn Center for Racial Equity it set up after the George Floyd protests. McDonald’s last week dropped targets for the percentage of women and non-white managers, stopped requiring suppliers to sign the DEI pledge, and said it now refers to its diversity team as its global inclusion team.

Both companies pointed to legal issues but changing circumstances. McDonald cites an “evolving landscape” as he says he’s committed to inclusion. Walmart’s transformation process shows us that “we are willing to change with our partners and customers who represent all of America. We’ve been on a journey and we know we’re not perfect, but every decision comes from a place of wanting to develop a sense of ownership.”

Consultants and other corporate advisers say the shift in location has given companies a way to rethink or scrap environmental and diversity goals they haven’t met.

“You don’t want to get caught promising and not delivering,” says Richard Edelman, CEO of the Edelman Public Relations Group, which advises corporate leaders. “Companies are still committed to diversity and committed to inclusion, they just don’t want to guarantee results.”

The conservative common companies in 2010 It is unclear whether it will last much longer than the progressive positions they set in 2020. Bryant, a former DEI executive who is now CEO of consulting firm Pathfinder, said many of the policy changes appear to be targeted. Easing political scrutiny rather than productive policy changes.

“Maya Angelu said, ‘Believe people when they show you who they are.’ When companies show you who they are, trust them,” she says.

(Reporting by Brooke Masters, James Fontanella-Kahn, Gregory Meyer, Taylor Nicole Rogers, and Patrick Temple-West in New York and Tabby Kinder in San Francisco