Latest news with #RobbyStarbuck
Fast Company
2 hours ago
- Business
- Fast Company
Why Costco CEO Ron Vachris is Fast Company's Visionary of the Year
Last June, conservative activist Robby Starbuck launched a campaign targeting 'woke' companies, threatening boycotts unless they renounced their policies on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Through the end of 2024, many companies buckled, including Tractor Supply Co., John Deere, Harley-Davidson, and Walmart. The movement's momentum continued to grow after the November election, claiming McDonald's, Target, Amazon, Meta, PBS, and others. Then the anti-DEI mob ran into Ron Vachris, a guy who started at Costco as a forklift driver more than 40 years ago and rose to become the CEO in 2024. In January, the National Center for Public Policy Research submitted an anti-DEI proposal at Costco's annual shareholder meeting. On January 23, Vachris and the company's board of directors unanimously recommended that shareholders reject the proposal, and more than 98% of shareholders did just that. Three days later, 19 Republican state attorneys general sent Vachris a letter demanding Costco end its DEI policies. Vachris and Costco didn't budge, which is why Fast Company is recognizing him as the inaugural recipient of the World Changing Ideas Visionary of the Year. Vachris declined to talk to Fast Company. (Who can blame him? The last thing he needs is to look like he's taking a victory lap.) 'Vachris's actions,' says David Glasgow, a DEI expert at NYU Law School, 'provided a good example for other organizations that are feeling a lot of fear and anxiety right now.' Studies from McKinsey, MIT, and others confirm the long-term financial benefits for companies with strong DEI policies. 'They tend to have teams that are more creative. Workers tend to be happier. There's less attrition and turnover when you have a focus on inclusion,' says Northwestern University's Alvin Tillery. Costco retains workers at a higher rate than its competitors, and employees earn a median annual wage of $47,000 (compared with about $27,000 at Walmart). Vachris, a prime example to shelf-stocking employees that Costco rewards top performers, may also inspire other leaders to stand up for their principles.
New York Post
4 days ago
- Politics
- New York Post
Beware: The Human Rights Campaign is just a scam to push lefty issues
Why does Uber make videos where people say, 'I'm non-binary or genderqueer'? And why does Lockheed Martin fund floats at Pride parades? Because companies want to raise their score on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index. Equality is a good thing. I support human rights. But the Human Rights Campaign? That's something else. 'They have nothing to do with actual human rights,' says Robby Starbuck. 'They're an LGBTQ+ advocacy organization that pushes topics about transgenderism into the workplace.' Starbuck uses his social-media following to criticize the many companies that partner with the Human Rights Campaign. The campaign 'does great harm,' he says, because companies that want a high score must do things like pay for trans employees' gender reassignment surgery and fund puberty blockers for employees' kids. I push back, 'I know people who've had the surgery, and they seem happier!' 'If you're an adult and you make a set of decisions I disagree with, that's your prerogative,' replies Starbuck. 'I don't want to give my money to a company that's going to use it to fund any sex changes of any child.' People can debate the age when you're considered competent to medically change your gender. What surprises me is how many companies suck up to the Human Rights Campaign by paying for it. Google even brags about providing a 'trans liaison' to help people transition. Even some of your Amtrak tax subsidy goes to pay for this stuff. Amtrak's 'Lead Environmental Specialist' touts 'education on personal pronouns.' To raise their Corporate Equality Index scores, companies are encouraged to donate to LGBTQ+ groups — like the Human Rights Campaign! That helps the campaign collect millions in tax-free money. The more I looked at the organization, the less it seems to be about human rights, and the more it seems to be about left-wing advocacy. Its homepage features protesters holding signs saying, 'I will aid and abet abortion.' When I point that out to Starbuck, he says, 'Yeah, which humans? Which rights? Apparently, if you're a small enough human, you don't have rights.' The campaign's president says its Corporate Equality Index is 'about partnership with businesses to make workplaces as inclusive as possible for LGBTQ+ people.' But today, most businesses are inclusive, and in America, LGBT people are more accepted than ever. Twenty years ago, 37% of Americans supported gay marriage; 45% said gay relationships are moral. Today, support for gay marriage is at 69% and 64% consider gay relationships moral. Yet, as life gets better for LGBT people, the Human Rights Campaign declared a 'national state of emergency for LGBTQ+ Americans!' 'This is a crisis right now!' said HRC president Kelley Robinson. I think I know why she said that. If activists acknowledge that Americans have come to accept LGBT people, the campaign might go out of business. One HRC executive says, 'We are never going to reach a destination.' Of course not. There's money to be made and leftist propaganda that needs spreading. Starbuck, by pointing out what the HRC really does, has persuaded some companies to stop sucking up. Ford, Harley-Davidson, Lowe's, Molson Coors, Toyota, Tractor Supply, Walmart and others announced that they will no longer participate in the Index. 'We came along and told people the story and they backtracking began,' says Starbuck. The campaign's president says, 'What we're seeing from these companies is short-sighted.' Maybe. Businesses can join whatever lists they want, but they ought to do what's good for their business. That means listening to customers, not progressive activists. 'At the end of the day,' says Starbuck, 'that's all people want, is for businesses to do their business. Not to virtue signal . . . or to perpetuate a political ideology.' John Stossel is the author of 'Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media.'
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Walmart, PayPal shareholders reject DEI overhauls as corporate America continues retreat from social issues
Stockholders at Walmart (WMT) and PayPal (PYPL) on Thursday voted down proposals that would have upended how those companies deal with diversity, equity, and inclusion, an issue that has roiled companies across the corporate world amid shifting political and cultural pressures. Walmart investors voted down shareholder proposals related to the company's DEI initiatives, while PayPal investors roundly rejected a proposal that would have required the company to analyze the risks of its charitable contributions. An anti-DEI measure at Walmart proposed by the National Center for Public Policy Research's Free Enterprise Project (FEP) asked for the retail giant's board to explain why it held off on amending its DEI initiatives until after DEI opponent Robby Starbuck publicly pressured the company. FEP also expressed concern that Walmart had 'repackaged' rather than eliminated its DEI initiatives. At PayPal, FEP sought disclosures on the impact of PayPal's charitable giving, citing concerns that the company's association with organizations such as Human Rights Campaign increase its risk of discriminating against individuals based on speech or religious exercise. Walmart has faced some repudiation for making changes to its own DEI policies, including from its own investors. More than 30 shareholders representing $266 billion in assets sent a message earlier this year to CEO Doug McMillon that called the retailer's DEI policy changes "very disheartening." The company scaled back its diversity initiatives and said it would no longer use the DEI acronym late last year. One shareholder, United for Respect, asked fellow shareholders to vote in favor of a measure that would bolster racial and equity inclusion, claiming Walmart is not addressing 'the need of [a] diverse workforce.' Walmart's corporate secretary Rachel Brand encouraged shareholders to vote against the measure. 'We do not make employment decisions on the basis of race or gender,' she said, adding that the company hires from a broad pool of candidates, which is evident from its publicly reported data. Dozens of companies this year have faced DEI proposals on both sides of the issue, and dozens have proactively announced about-faces on diversity, including Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL), Meta (META), McDonald's (MCD), Amazon (AMZN), JPMorgan (JPM), Target (TGT), and Tractor Supply (TSCO). Additional DEI-related proposals are pending this week at Netflix (NFLX) and Alphabet. Tractor Supply is now looking to steer clear of the conversation completely. On Wednesday, its CEO Hal Lawton told Yahoo Finance that the company's goal in making changes to its DEI policies was to 'remove" itself "from any sort of discourse that people viewed to be political or social in its orientation." For brick-and-mortar retailers, DEI pushback hasn't been limited to shareholder votes, as shoppers appeared to vote with their feet. found that for the week of May 26, Walmart's foot traffic was down 0.1% year over year, while Target's foot traffic was down 2.8%. Meanwhile, foot traffic at Costco (COST) — which has affirmed its support for DEI policies and was listed by the NAACP as part of a "Black Consumer Advisory" initiative — continued to outperform, up 3.8% year over year in the last week of May. Target consumers' decision to boycott the brand was reflected in the retailer's first quarter results, where it posted a 3.8% year-over-year decline in same-store sales. CEO Brian Cornell said during the earnings call that one headwind Target faced in the quarter was consumer reaction to "updates [it] shared on belonging in January." Those reactions, Cornell said, added to ongoing pressure on consumers' discretionary spending as tariff uncertainty has caused consumer confidence to wane in recent months. During Walmart's Thursday shareholder meeting, an investor asked its CEO Doug McMillon if the company still supported the LGBTQ community and if it planned to sell merchandise for Pride Month. "What we continue to try and do is to be a Walmart for everyone ... We want everyone that works for the company to be excited about being here, and that's what we'll continue to work towards," McMillon said. Alexis Keenan is a legal reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow Alexis on X @alexiskweed. Brooke DiPalma is a senior reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X at @BrookeDiPalma or email her at bdipalma@ Click here for all of the latest retail stock news and events to better inform your investing strategy
Telegraph
6 days ago
- Business
- Telegraph
How Trump killed Pride month
Corporate America has fallen out of love with Pride month – and it's because of Donald Trump. Businesses that used to smother their merchandise in rainbow flags for the month of June have dramatically scaled back this year, many wary of provoking an investigation by the Trump administration. Meanwhile, Pride events across the US are facing budget shortfalls as corporate sponsors duck out. Robby Starbuck, the anti-woke activist known for his pressure campaigns, believes a 'massive' shift has taken place at some of the world's biggest companies in the past year. Polling of 200 corporate executives by Gravity Research, seen by The Telegraph, showed almost two in five plan to pare back their Pride month celebrations this year. Of those, the overwhelming majority – 60 per cent – said this was a result of pressure by Mr Trump. 'It's clear that the administration and their supporters are driving the change,' Luke Hartig, president of Gravity Research, said. 'Companies are under increasing pressure not to engage and speak out on issues.' On his first days in office, Mr Trump issued a flurry of executive orders taking aim at diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in both the government and private sector. Jeremy Tedesco, a senior counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), believes that most companies regard Pride as a 'performative act' and are now unwilling to risk incurring the wrath of the administration by showing their support. 'In those orders are promises to use the department of justice and some of the other relevant federal agencies to investigate recalcitrant companies that are continuing illegal practices,' he said. 'Companies are viewing this as a legitimate risk at this point.' Right-wing activists believe much of corporate America's commitment to Pride month and LGBT causes is underpinned by the Human Rights Campaign, an influential pressure group. Eric Bloem, its vice-president of corporate citizenship, claimed Mr Trump was 'weaponising' the justice department and the equal employment opportunity commission to 'intimidate companies'. 'Companies that show up only when it's convenient, or backtrack the moment there's political pressure, risk losing trust and credibility,' he told CNN. Americans cynical about companies embracing Pride Gravity's polling shows Americans are broadly cynical about companies that have embraced Pride, believing they are more concerned with profit than principle. 'It's primarily that Left-wing activists figured out the levers of pressure to apply to companies, to get them to do what they wanted to do, while the Right of centre didn't really show up,' Mr Tedesco said. Now it is the Left which appears to have been caught flat-footed by the sudden shift in the political landscape. In San Francisco, the US' longstanding liberal bastion, its annual Pride event reportedly faces a $200,000 budget gap after corporate donors failed to materialise this year. Heritage of Pride, the group behind celebrations in New York and other American cities, is attempting to claw its way out of a budget shortfall of some $750,000 for the same reason. Anheuser-Busch, a company scarred by its corporate partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, has left Pridefest in St Louis, Missouri $150,000 in the black after ending its three-decade sponsorship. Washington DC is hosting World Pride this year, meaning drag queens and demonstrators waving rainbow flags will soon be descending on Mr Trump's doorstep. But there too, Booz Allen Hamilton, the technology company, withdrew its sponsorship citing its need to comply with 'recently issued executive orders', according to the Washington Business Journal. The Kennedy Centre, the performing arts venue where Mr Trump installed himself as chairman soon after taking office this year, has also cancelled its 'Tapestry of Pride' events which were scheduled to last from June 5 to 8. Washington Pride Alliance subsequently distanced itself from the centre, labelling the move 'disappointing'. Threat of backlash Gravity's polling shows 39 per cent of companies said they were toning down their celebrations because of a threat of a backlash from the Right. Just seven per cent said they had been swayed by resistance from progressives, in a sign of the shifting power dynamics in American politics. Mr Starbuck, one of America's most vocal anti-DEI campaigners, said companies had belatedly realised they were going to 'divide their customer base' by leaning too heavily into Pride events. The political clash over Pride and DEI causes has created an untenable situation for companies, he told The Telegraph. 'You're going to elicit this yearly outrage where you're a ping pong ball in the culture war,' Mr Starbuck said. 'I think that when they talk to one side and they talk to the other side, what they find is we're the rational ones. I'm not demanding that they take on my politics – I'm asking for corporate neutrality. The other side is demanding total adherence to their ideology. 'The left is losing ground because they're behaving absurdly and they expect companies to be a proxy for their beliefs, whereas I expect companies just to stay out of divisive subjects.'
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Robby Starbuck calls Meta apology ‘sort of bizarre' amid defamation lawsuit
Robby Starbuck, a conservative author and activist, took a swing at Meta on Friday, just a week after an executive apologized for the company's artificial intelligence (AI) search engine spreading false information about him. 'I think it's one of the first times I've ever seen a company come out in the middle of active litigation and essentially say, 'Yeah, we did that. Sorry about that' — which is sort of bizarre, leaves one scratching your head, like that's a bizarre legal strategy,' Starbuck told NewsNation's 'On Balance' in an interview. 'But essentially, they admitted guilt,' he continued. 'So, in one hand, I'm happy they did that, but secondarily … I'm concerned about what is the precedent for the future. Are we going to allow AI to invent whatever it wants out there as the truth, when, in fact, it's not?' The conservative film maker has accused Meta's system of falsely reporting that he was present at the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and that he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct. He later filed a lawsuit against the company that owns Facebook and Instagram. Following roughly nine months of litigation, an executive reached out to Starbuck to issue an apology. 'Robby – I watched your video – this is unacceptable,' Joel Kaplan, Meta's chief global affairs officer, wrote in a post last week on social platform X. 'This is clearly not how our AI should operate. We're sorry for the results it shared about you and that the fix we put in place didn't address the underlying problem.' Starbuck said while he appreciates the apology, he is focused on the bigger picture, including how AI and misinformation could affect elections in the future. 'It comes after us privately trying to solve this, not just for me, but for everybody, because that's my real goal here — I want to fix this problem, so it never does this to anybody,' he told host Leland Vittert, while also questioning why there isn't more bipartisan support for his cause. 'I want to stop this for everyone, regardless of their party,' Starbuck added. Asked if he's seeking damages, the conservative replied 'yeah.' 'There's damages for sure. I mean, it's like any other defamation case,' he said. 'They damaged my reputation, my character.' 'People have come up on the streets thinking that I was a criminal that pled guilty to a crime that I obviously did not commit,' Starbuck continued. 'It even suggested my kids be taken away from me by authorities. And again, my kids have seen people come up to me thinking that I was at Jan. 6 … that I got arrested for breaking in … none of that is true.' He's also reported death threats associated with the false information. According to the lawsuit, Starbuck is seeking over $5,000,000 in compensatory and punitive damages. The legal complaint came after Meta launched its standalone version of its AI assistant late last month, touting more 'personal' and 'relevant' responses. The application uses its Llama 4 coding model to collect information from across the company's platforms, according to the press release. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
