Uber Exec on Trump: “I Do Not Accept Him as My Leader”
January 26, 2017
Hmmm.
We appear to have suffered a coup engineered to the advantage of Oil Giants and a hostile foreign Petro State. (hate it when that happens)
Can the power of the Oil Industry be countered? Author Mike Roddy speculates.
Shortly after Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, the Chief Technology Officer of Uber rattled off an explosive email meant for a small group of employees that quickly spread like wildfire within the company, Business Insider has learned.
In the message, CTO Thuan Pham blasted then President-elect Donald Trump as a “deplorable person,” and called his election a huge step backward — even comparing it to the rise of ruthless dictators such as Mao Tse-dong in China and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia after the Vietnam War.
The email was being circulated internally amongst employees again in the past week, as Uber has come under fire for its link to the Trump administration. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick was recently named as one of 19 executives who will advise President Trump on economic issues, joining Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Disney CEO Bob Iger.
The visceral outburst by a top executive at one of the world’s most valuable private companies reflects Silicon Valley’s ongoing struggle to come to terms with a president who is deeply unpopular within the industry. Even Uber, whose outspoken CEO and aggressive business tactics have long courted controversy, appears to be divided by a crisis of conscience within the ranks as some employees weigh the costs of being perceived as a pro-Trump shop.
Uber’s ties to the Trump administration made headlines on Friday after protesters barricaded the doors of its San Francisco headquarters to denounce Uber’s “collaboration” with Trump.
At the weekly Uber all-hands meeting on Tuesday, Kalanick addressed the Trump issue and the blowback it’s created for the company. Kalanick pushed back against the criticisms, explaining that he was joining many other business leaders on Trump’s council looking to create job opportunities and to improve urban mobility:
“The CEO of Disney, the CEO of IBM, the CEO of GM, the CEO of Uber, the CEO of Tesla and maybe 15 other companies you’ve heard of… We have a party — our political party is called the Urban Mobility Party. The shorthand is UMP. We’re a coalition party; we’ll partner with anyone in the world as long they’re about making transportation in cities better, creating job opportunities, making it easier to get around, getting pollution out of the air and traffic off the streets. And so that’s what this is about. It’s about the leaders we have to work with around the world, not just here in the United States but everywhere. And being optimistic — asking can we make urban mobility better? But does it [the board/protests] make great headlines? Of course.”
Still, employees are “pissed” that they are being connected to Trump, whose comments about immigrants and women have upset many people, said one insider at the company.
Elon Musk and President Donald Trump may seem like polar opposites, but Musk in fact could end up being a big surprise winner under the Trump administration.
On the surface, the two couldn’t be more different. Musk made a name for himself by making bold bets on futuristic technology: digital payments, electric cars, solar panels and privatized space exploration. His businesses typically require years of upfront investment before showing a profit.
He’s cerebral but a little reckless, like a precociously smart teenager — he proudly told the story of how he crashed a $3.5 million McLaren sports car while driving too fast in a bid to impress Peter Thiel. And he didn’t think to buy insurance first.
Trump, on the other hand, built his fortune in a business firmly rooted in the here and now, real estate, and his temperament is more like the scolding school principal’s.
They’re also diametrically opposed when it comes to climate change. Musk’s business interests revolve around reducing dependence on fossil fuels, while Trump has pledged to cut through regulations meant to fight climate change, and once called it a hoax (although his pick for EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, has admitted it’s real).
So what to make of the fact that Musk was at the White House on Monday, appearing alongside execs from Ford and other old-line companies like Lockheed Martin and Johnson & Johnson? In addition, Musk was part of the December meeting between tech leaders and Trump, even though his companies have a much smaller market value than most of the others represented around the table, and he was reportedly invited to stay for a second smaller meeting alongside Apple CEO Tim Cook.
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Private sector competition. SpaceX is a perfect example of a private company taking on a huge task — space travel and exploration — that used to fall exclusively to a federal government agency. This is exactly the kind of private sector invention that libertarian-minded conservatives, like Thiel, encourage.
If it continues, this unlikely alliance could have benefits for both sides. Musk gets an ear to the president who’s promised to shake up the current order and make it easier for American companies to do business. Trump gets the support of a visionary technologist who could help repair his image among the Silicon Valley tech community, which was vocally opposed to Trump during his candidacy.
While this may seem surprising to a lot people, it’s not totally surprising to investors. Tesla is up about 31 percent since the election, while the Dow Jones industrial average is up roughly 9 percent since the election.
Climate Denial Crock of the Week 
January 26, 2017 at 9:22 am
The video has been removed by the user. Is there an alternative version?
January 26, 2017 at 11:31 pm
back now
January 27, 2017 at 12:42 am
Thanks. 🙂
January 27, 2017 at 12:45 am
VERY unhappy. Trump is a f…ing dictator wannabe who is in the process of destroying our liberal Democratic republic.
He should be resisted by all of us with a conscience and a love of country. #RESIST
January 27, 2017 at 12:01 pm
Comment found on one of my FB friend’s page – it is quite disturbing, to say the least:
We are 4 days in.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the DOJ’s Violence Against Women programs.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Minority Business Development Agency.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Economic Development Administration.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the International Trade Administration.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Legal Services Corporation.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Environmental and Natural Resources Division of the DOJ.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Office of Electricity Deliverability and Energy Reliability.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Office of Fossil Energy.
* On January 20th, 2017, DT ordered all regulatory powers of all federal agencies frozen.
* On January 20th, 2017, DT ordered the National Parks Service to stop using social media after RTing factual, side by side photos of the crowds for the 2009 and 2017 inaugurations.
* On January 20th, 2017, roughly 230 protestors were arrested in DC and face unprecedented felony riot charges. Among them were legal observers, journalists, and medics.
* On January 20th, 2017, a member of the International Workers of the World was shot in the stomach at an anti-fascist protest in Seattle. He remains in critical condition.
* On January 21st, 2017, DT brought a group of 40 cheerleaders to a meeting with the CIA to cheer for him during a speech that consisted almost entirely of framing himself as the victim of dishonest press.
* On January 21st, 2017, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer held a press conference largely to attack the press for accurately reporting the size of attendance at the inaugural festivities, saying that the inauguration had the largest audience of any in history, “period.”
* On January 22nd, 2017, White House advisor Kellyann Conway defended Spicer’s lies as “alternative facts” on national television news.
* On January 22nd, 2017, DT appeared to blow a kiss to director James Comey during a meeting with the FBI, and then opened his arms in a gesture of strange, paternal affection, before hugging him with a pat on the back.
* On January 23rd, 2017, DT reinstated the global gag order, which defunds international organizations that even mention abortion as a medical option.
* On January 23rd, 2017, Spicer said that the US will not tolerate China’s expansion onto islands in the South China Sea, essentially threatening war with China.
* On January 23rd, 2017, DT repeated the lie that 3-5 million people voted “illegally” thus costing him the popular vote.
* On January 23rd, 2017, it was announced that the man who shot the anti-fascist protester in Seattle was released without charges, despite turning himself in.
* On January 24th, 2017, Spicer reiterated the lie that 3-5 million people voted “illegally” thus costing DT the popular vote.
* On January 24th, 2017, DT tweeted a picture from his personal Twitter account of a photo he says depicts the crowd at his inauguration and will hang in the White House press room. The photo is of the 2009 inauguration of 44th President Barack Obama, and is curiously dated January 21st, 2017, the day AFTER the inauguration and the day of the Women’s March, the largest inauguration related protest in history.
* On January 24th, 2017, the EPA was ordered to stop communicating with the public through social media or the press and to freeze all grants and contracts.
* On January 24th, 2017, the USDA was ordered to stop communicating with the public through social media or the press and to stop publishing any papers or research. All communication with the press would also have to be authorized and vetted by the White House.
* On January 24th, 2017, HR7, a bill that would prohibit federal funding not only to abortion service providers, but to any insurance coverage, including Medicaid, that provides abortion coverage, went to the floor of the House for a vote.
* On January 24th, 2017, DT ordered the resumption of construction on the Dakota Access Pipeline, while the North Dakota state congress considers a bill that would legalize hitting and killing protestors with cars if they are on roadways.
* On January 24th, 2017, it was discovered that police officers had used confiscated cell phones to search the emails and messages of the 230 demonstrators now facing felony riot charges for protesting on January 20th, including lawyers and journalists whose email accounts contain privileged information of clients and sources.
*credit for compilation: Karen Cornett-Dwyer