Hold the protests!
Uber's good now! That, at least, could be the message the company hopes to
convey with news that Travis Kalanick, CEO of the massive Silicon Valley
ride-hailing business, is stepping down from President Trump's economic
advisory council, which he joined in December along
with the likes of Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
“Earlier today I
spoke briefly with the president about the immigration executive order and its
issues for our community,” Kalanick wrote in an email to employees today obtained by the New York Times, Recode, and others. “I also let him know that I would
not be able to participate on his economic council. Joining the group was not
meant to be an endorsement of the president or his agenda but unfortunately it
has been misinterpreted to be exactly that.”
Kalanick's move
comes under pressure from a #deleteuber
movement, spawned by the perception, warranted or no, that Uber had
acted to break a Taxi Workers Alliance strike at JFK.
Here is the full memo I received 30 minutes ago. pic.twitter.com/ctfhThqfhb
In the last week,
Kalanick has defended his role on Trump's council as a possible bargaining
position, which he's now abandoned just in the nick of time as a protests outside the
company's San Francisco offices are planned for this evening
and similar demonstrations in Long Island City outside Uber's New York offices are
getting underway. Will those come to an instant halt as everybody downloads
Uber again? We shall see.
3/ I'm going to use my position on Pres economic council to stand up for
what's right - https://t.co/L6U9LOv3IX
— travis kalanick
(@travisk) January 29, 2017
Maybe this move does
count as using his position with the President to "stand up for what's
right," something which Kalanick should feel free to do whether he's on
the economic advisory council or not.
Previously: [Update] Planned
Thursday Protests And #DeleteUber Campaign Appears To Convince Kalanic To Dump
Trump
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