Apple's Cook Joins Business Leaders Criticizing Trump's Remarks -- Update
August 17 2017 - 8:14PM
Dow Jones News
By Tripp Mickle and Kelsey Gee
Apple Inc. Chief Executive Tim Cook joined the chorus of leaders
of high-profile U.S. companies who have felt compelled to share
their views on Donald Trump's response to Saturday's
white-supremacist protests amid widespread unease on the part of
their employees, customers and others.
Mr. Cook called the events in Charlottesville, Va., "repulsive"
in an email to employees, saying he disagrees "with the president
and others" who see a moral equivalence between white supremacists
and Nazis on one side and those who oppose them by standing up for
human rights on the other.
"Equating the two runs counter to our ideals as Americans," Mr.
Cook wrote in the email late Wednesday, a copy of which was
reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. He said he felt compelled to
speak out on the events, which he found personally troubling, in
part because he heard from many people at Apple "who are saddened,
outraged or confused."
"What occurred in Charlottesville has no place in our country,"
he wrote. "We must not witness or permit such hate and bigotry in
our country, and we must be unequivocal about it. This is not about
the left or the right, conservative or liberal. It is about human
decency and morality."
Mr. Cook's memo echoed sentiment expressed in staff memos penned
this week by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. CEO Doug McMillon, J.P. Morgan
Chase & Co. chief James Dimon and Ernst & Young Global
Chairman and CEO Mark Weinberger. Mr. McMillon said Mr. Trump had
"missed a critical opportunity to help bring our country together
by unequivocally rejecting the appalling actions of white
supremacists."
Aetna Inc. Chief Executive Mark Bertolini said in a memo to his
staff that he was "ashamed of our President's behavior and
comments. ...We are not a country of hate, and we are all judged by
our own god based on the compassion and humanity we show
others."
Beyond the sheer number of prominent CEOs taking such public
action, the memos are noteworthy because they don't address
administrative policy positions that affect day-to-day business,
but rather rebuke the president on his leadership approach on a
broad social and moral issue. The executives' overarching message
was that they couldn't remain silent as the president appeared to
equate white supremacists and Nazis with counterprotesters standing
against racism.
William W. George, a Harvard Business School professor and
former chief executive of device-maker Medtronic PLC, said that
while corporate leaders have in the past criticized policy
decisions by previous administrations, such direct opposition to a
president is unusual.
"I've never seen this before," Mr. George said. CEOs he had
spoken to said they "didn't want to embarrass the president, but
they felt they needed to stand up and be counted in the absence of
moral clarity from the White House."
Not all CEOs who weighed in on the past week's controversy
directly criticized Mr. Trump. International Business Machines
Corp. chief Ginni Rometty, for example, didn't mention the
president directly in her memo criticizing the actions in
Charlottesville and calling for unity, which she sent staff after
the dissolution of the President's Strategic and Policy Forum, on
which she sat.
The CEOs' criticism of the president marked a departure from
some of the optimism many expressed at the outset of the Trump
administration that the new president would be a business-friendly
leader who would revise the tax code and reduce regulation.
Much of that goodwill had eroded even before this week, thanks
to policies that many executives and employees opposed. Tech
executives and workers, many of whom were born abroad, were
especially angered by Mr. Trump's initial immigration order that
banned entry to the U.S. of nationals from seven majority-Muslim
nations.
Mr. Cook sent memos to employees about the immigration ban and
about Mr. Trump's June withdrawal from the Paris climate accord,
but those emails focused on the company's support of immigration
and the belief that climate change is real. They stopped short of
directly criticizing the president as Mr. Cook did in his email
this week.
Mr. Cook's latest memo also said Apple will contribute $1
million each to the Southern Poverty Law Center and the
Anti-Defamation League. The company also plans to match employee
contributions 2-for-1 to those organizations and other human-rights
groups through next month, and to enable iTunes customers to join
in contributing to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
"These have been dark days, but I remain as optimistic as ever
that the future is bright," Mr. Cook said.
Write to Tripp Mickle at Tripp.Mickle@wsj.com and Kelsey Gee at
kelsey.gee@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 17, 2017 19:59 ET (23:59 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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