Why Chief Executives Are Looking Forward to a Second Trump Term
Why Chief Executives Are Looking Forward to a Second Trump Term
‘The CEOs of the Fortune 500 are not what is going to preserve democracy,’ the Groundwork Collaborative’s Lindsay Owens told me.
Yesterday, as CEOs of some of America’s biggest companies enjoyed a private audience with Donald Trump at the quarterly meeting of the Business Roundtable, The Guardian published my latest article: “‘Perilous for democracy, good for profits’: is big business ready to love Trump again?”
In the aftermath of the November 2020 election, and then again on January 6, 2021, CEOs were heralded as patriots who put their self-interest aside and their reputations at risk to speak out about the dangers of political polarization and the importance of protecting democracy.
Four years later, with Trump’s coin-flip odds of returning to the White House—alongside his promises of new tax cuts, regulatory rollbacks, and a reversal of the Biden administration’s push for worker power—many of these CEOs seem a bit less concerned.
You can read the full story here: “‘Perilous for democracy, good for profits’: is big business ready to love Trump again?”
My other story that ran yesterday was a contribution to DeSmog: “‘Thumb on the Scale’: Big Oil Aims to Cash in on Hydrogen Tax Credits—with Natural Gas.”
Earlier this week, I attended a conference for the nascent hydrogen energy industry. While I was there, much of my energy was spent trying to untangle the euphemisms and doublespeak deployed by fossil fuel giants like BP (a gold sponsor of the conference) and ExxonMobil (a bronze sponsor) to cloak their commitment to continued oil and gas production under the banner of “clean” hydrogen.
You can read the outcome of my efforts here: “‘Thumb on the Scale’: Big Oil Aims to Cash in on Hydrogen Tax Credits—with Natural Gas.”
Thanks as always to the editors and teams at The Guardian and DeSmog for commissioning and publishing these stories.
And keep an eye out for my next Sunday Conversation—landing in email inboxes and “Reframe Your Inbox” podcast feeds on Sunday.