What’s the ethical case for CEOs publicly endorsing candidates?
When a CEO gets political, the reactions are usually mixed.
No corporation is immune to accusations of woke-washing. At the same time, consumers and employees have come to expect business leaders to make good use of their considerable influence. That’s why it’s curious that so few business titans have come out with a clear statement favoring one presidential candidate over the other in the current US election.
Why haven’t we seen more memos like the one Expensify CEO David Barrett recently sent to his customers, urging people to vote for Joe Biden? “As CEO of this business, it’s my job to plot a course through any storm,” he wrote, and four more years of Trump leadership “will damage our democracy to such an extent, I’m obligated on behalf of shareholders to take any action I can to avoid it.”
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