A professor and entrepreneur thinks he’s cracked the code on how to cripple a “coin-operated president.”
Scott Galloway, a marketing professor at NYU Stern School of Business and host of the popular podcasts Prof G Pod and Pivot, launched a new campaign aimed at hitting President Donald Trump where it’s likely to hurt him the most: Big Tech’s revenue.
Galloway, 61, launched an “economic strike” he dubbed Resist and Unsubscribe after immigration agents launched hardline operations in Minneapolis that killed two U.S. citizens. The campaign calls on Americans to cancel their subscriptions with 10 tech companies that Galloway identified as “having outsized influence over the national economy and our president,” including Jeff Bezos and Andy Jassy’s Amazon, Tim Cook’s Apple, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, Sam Altman’s OpenAI, and Elon Musk’s X.
“This is a coin-operated president,” he told The Daily Beast Podcast host Hugh Dougherty. “And these individuals have decided that their one and only job is shareholder value. And I empathize with that, I get it. There’s a ton of pressure; nobody wants to go first. But there needs to be collective action from 10, 50, a hundred, or the Fortune 500 to say, ‘This has just gone too far.’ But what is it about? It’s about one thing. It’s about shareholder value—full stop.”
“They are saying, ‘Let’s wait this guy out, let’s kiss his a--, let’s give a million dollars to the East Wing, let’s go to the premiere, and let’s stay out of his crosshairs and make sure the good times keep going for us and our shareholders,” Galloway added, referencing tech companies’ donations to Trump’s $400 million White House ballroom and bigwig CEOs’ attendance at the premiere of first lady Melania Trump’s Amazon-funded documentary.
Galloway’s Resist and Unsubscribe campaign also urges consumers to cut ties with service providers that have contracts with ICE, such as AT&T, FedEx, and Comcast.
“These companies are highly sensitive to growth rates and projected growth rates,” he said. “The easiest way to maybe save some money and have a really big impact and send a message to the markets, to Trump, and to other citizens that they can have an impact is to resist and unsubscribe.”
Galloway said there’s precedent for his campaign. Last year, cancellations of Disney+ and Hulu subscriptions doubled after comedian Jimmy Kimmel got his eponymous late-night show suspended over his comments on the shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Kimmel returned to the airwaves less than a week later as viewers fiercely protested the move. Disney explained that it briefly suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live! “to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country.”
“So I think if you can just take GDP down one or two points, or if Sam Altman or Andy Jassy or Tim Cook says, ‘This unsubscribe thing is getting a little bit uncomfortable for us and our shareholders,’ I think they’re going to find their backbone and maybe not show up for as many Melania premieres or decide that maybe we shouldn’t be as supportive of ICE as we have been, or maybe we’re gonna be a little bit more courageous with our views,” Galloway said.
“I think you have to hit them where they feel it. And that’s in terms of shareholder value and a decline in subscriber growth,” he added. “So what do I want from them? I want them to show some fidelity to the American values that made them so wealthy and built such great companies.”
The White House said in a statement that “industry leaders frequently reach out to the President because they know they have a pro-business and pro-growth ally in the White House, and the Trump administration will continue to unleash robust private sector-led economic growth for the American people.”
“Americans overwhelmingly rejected cancel culture when they re-elected President Trump with an Election Day mandate,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said.
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