From New York to San Francisco, Donald Trump’s return to the White House has greenlighted a corporate cultural regression, instantaneously allowing companies to backtrack on years of climate goals and diversity and inclusion efforts with the anti-woke politico on the horizon.
Wall Street brokers and tech bros alike are celebrating the switch, claiming that they no longer feel the need to culturally consider women, minorities, or disabled people while they talk, reported the Financial Times.
“I feel liberated,” one top banker told the paper. “We can say ‘retard’ and ‘pussy’ without the fear of getting cancelled.… It’s a new dawn.”
Those working in New York’s financial sector also feel that they can ditch their social causes. A number of major Wall Street banks and money managers have quit industry groups focused on climate change and cutting carbon emissions, feeling that they instead can go full-throttle on making money without facing social repercussions.
“Most of us don’t have to kiss ass because, like Trump, we love America and capitalism,” another Wall Streeter told the pink page.
Another major corporate shift has effectively left behind DEI initiatives. That began when the Supreme Court ruled on the diversity program in 2023, but the “trickle became a flood” after Trump’s election victory, with companies such as Harley Davidson, Ford, Molson Coors, Walmart, and McDonalds peeling back on their corporate diversity commitments, according to the Financial Times.
“They don’t want to be caught out promising and not delivering,” Richard Edelman, chief executive of public relations group Edelman, told the paper. “Companies are still committed to diversity and they’re committed to inclusion, they just don’t want to guarantee outcomes.”
Silicon Valley is also seemingly all in on Trump’s forthcoming presidency, with Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos slated to attend the forty-seventh president’s inauguration next week alongside his Cabinet selections, according to NBC News.
The trio have courted Trump’s favor in the weeks since Trump won the presidential election, caving—in their own ways—to the climate of the forthcoming administration. Meta and X have heavily reduced their content-moderation policies, allowing disturbing language to circulate openly on their platforms, while Bezos canceled The Washington Post’s (which he owns) plans to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris’s candidacy.
A coalition of top tech heads, including Zuckerberg, Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, all pledged $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund, according to the Financial Times.
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Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, refused to answer whether or not he’d undergo an expanded FBI background check, at his confirmation hearing on Tuesday.
“I assume you’d be willing to submit to an expanded FBI background check that interviews your colleagues, accountants, ex-wives, former spouses, sexual assault survivors, and others?” Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal asked the embattled defense secretary nominee.
“Senator, I’m not in charge of FBI background checks,” Hegseth replied tersely.
“But you would submit to it and support it?”
“I’m not in charge of FBI background checks,” Hegseth repeated before taking a sip of water.
Hegseth has submitted to an FBI background check, but it disturbingly did not include interviews with his ex-wives or any of the women who accused him of sexual assault, according to several people who spoke with NBC News. A more thorough background check could shed more light on allegations that Hegseth has vehemently denied at his hearing—sexual assault, alcoholism, financial fraud, and more. It makes sense that Hegseth pleaded the Fifth.
