MONEY TALKS

Corporate Execs Mull Investment Freeze Over GOP Voting Laws

“They felt very strongly that these voting restrictions are based on a flawed premise and are dangerous,” said an organizer of the confab.

More than 100 CEOs and leaders from companies including Starbucks, Target, LinkedIn, and Levi Strauss participated in a Zoom call on Saturday to discuss halting investments in states implementing discriminatory voting laws and political donations to the Republican lawmakers pushing them through, according to The Washington Post. The online confab, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, was reportedly led by former American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault and Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier. It took place just days after Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) warned corporate America to “stay out of politics,” then quickly added that he still approved of political donations from those same firms. The call showed that the execs are “not intimidated by the flack. They are not going to be cowed,” Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a Yale management professor who helped organize the call, told the Post. “They felt very strongly that these voting restrictions are based on a flawed premise and are dangerous.”