PROTESTS/RACISM/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Three chief executives resigned Monday [8-14-17] from a manufacturing-advisory council to the Trump administration in an apparent protest of the president’s failure to quickly condemn the white supremacists who marched and engaged in violence in Charlottesville, Va., this weekend.
Drugmaker Merck MRK +0.29% & Co. issued a statement Monday morning on Twitter from Chairman and Chief Executive Kenneth Frazier, saying, ‘America’s leaders must honor our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy, which run counter to the American ideal that all people are created equal.’…
Intel Corp. INTC -0.98% Chief Executive Brian Krzanich on Monday night also announced his resignation from the manufacturing-advisory council. Mr. Krzanich stepped down ‘to call attention to the serious harm our divided political climate is causing to critical issues,’ including the decline of U.S. manufacturing, he said in a statement…
Kevin Plank, founder and chief executive of Under Armour Inc., UAA -4.44% said late Monday that he also would step down from the council. Earlier in the day, the company posted a comment attributed to Mr. Plank on its Twitter account that read: ‘We are saddened by #Charlottesville. There is no place for racism or discrimination in this world. We choose love & unity.’
Other CEOs who made statements on Twitter in response to the weekend violence included Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The Wall Street chief quoted Abraham Lincoln in tweeting: ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’ He added: ‘Isolate those who try to separate us. No equivalence w/ those who bring us together.’ “
-Peter Loftus, “Three CEOs Quit Trump Advisory Council After Charlottesville Violence,” The Wall Street Journal online, Aug. 15, 2017 12:01am