Under pressure, Uber CEO drops out of Trump's business advisory council

Travis Kalanick, the CEO of Uber, dropped out of President Trump’s business advisory council today after mounting pressure from progressives to boycott the company. CNN reports:

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Kalanick said he was not participating because of the president’s immigration order in a memo to employees.

“Earlier today I spoke briefly with the president about the immigration executive order and its issues for our community,” Kalanick said in the memo obtained by CNN. “I also let him know that I would not be able to participate on his economic council. Joining the group was not meant to be an endorsement of the president or his agenda but unfortunately it has been misinterpreted to be exactly that.”

Kalanick joined the council back in December along with Elon Musk and Pepsi’s Indra Nooyi. The company has been under pressure ever since including an inauguration day protest of their headquarters in San Francisco. Here’s what that looked like:

And there was chanting about fascism:

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But the anti-Uber campaign really shifted into top gear after President Trump released his executive order on immigration. As Jazz pointed out Monday, New York taxi drivers decided to participate in a protest against the order by refusing to take fares at JFK airport. Uber did not refuse fares at JFK and people began turning their ire against Uber with the hashtag #DeleteUber. Lyft, Uber’s main competition, then amplified the issue by announcing it would donate a million dollars to the ACLU. So the taxi drivers and Lyft were down with the struggle and Uber was on the outside with their CEO still on a Trump advisory council.

By Sunday, Uber was sending a message to people who were deleting their app which said “Uber shares your views on the immigration ban.” Apparently that wasn’t enough to stem the righteous tide, so now Kalanick is abandoning the business council as a sign that he doesn’t like Trump.

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David Strom 6:40 PM | April 18, 2024
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