Kerby Anderson

The CEOs of major corporations may be smart people when it comes to business, but many of them apparently don’t know when to keep their comments to themselves after the 2016 presidential election. Their public rants against Donald Trump’s election and their criticism of voters aren’t likely to encourage people to buy their products. Matt Maloney is the CEO of Grubhub. The company offers take out, but lately seem more intent in telling its conservative employees to get out. After criticizing the president-elect and the people who voted for him he concluded: “If you do not agree with this statement then please reply to this email with your resignation, because you have no place here. We do not tolerate hateful attitudes on our team.” Bill Penzey of Penzey Spices went on a rant about Donald Trump and then concluded with a pointed comment to anyone who was stupid enough to vote for him. He said: “You really are a good bunch, but you just committed the biggest act of racism in American history since Wallace stood in the schoolhouse doorway 53 years ago.” The next company to join these ranks is the Kellogg’s company. It recently announced its decision to pulls ads from the conservative media giant Breitbart.com. The company executives argued that the 45 million monthly conservative readers of Breitbart “are not aligned with our values as a company.” Breitbart responded by explaining that they “are fearless advocates for traditional American values, perhaps most important among them is freedom of speech.” They also launched a #DumpKelloggs petition and called for a boycott of Kellogg’s cereals, Eggos, Pringles, and other brands. As I have said in previous commentaries, it would be wise for businesses and corporations to stop alienating customers and stay out of the culture wars. Unfortunately, a number of CEOs haven’t figured this out.