The notion that executives should take positions on contentious issues ranging from immigration to vaccination has become normalised. One C-suite networking group, World 50, reported last week that 95 per cent of its members felt that the pressure to do so had grown over the past three years. Now, though, we are also seeing a backlash to business activism, deepening suspicion of corporate money in politics and a shift in the political debate.

US companies have for decades written cheques to politicians on both sides to buy access and advance their interests, notes Joe Zammit-Lucia, author of The New Political Capitalism. But he adds: “The things that are relevant to businesses’ self interest are now subsidiary to the culture wars. So you might be buying access, but access to what? . . . Nobody wants to spend $10mn buying access to being involved in the abortion debate.”

Instead of securing influence with those in power, businesses are becoming “political proxies”, warns Columbia University management professor Vanessa Burbano: useful props in the culture warriors’ crowd-pleasing performances. Perhaps because Burbano’s research suggests that companies’ public statements on polarising political topics also tend to generate more blowback than approval, some business leaders are now wondering whether to lie low.