Apple shareholders voted for the attempt to put pressure on the technology company in order to give Donald Trump's advance of diversifying corporate programs to diversify his workforce.
A proposal to follow a litany of top-class companies described by the National Center for Public Policy Research-Einer Self-described proposal as described by Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (Dei) initiatives that are currently in the crosshairs Trump management.
After a brief presentation about the anti-Dei proposal, Apple announced that the shareholders had rejected him without revealing the vote. The preliminary results will be outlined later on Tuesday in a regulatory submission.
The result confirmed Apple Management's decision to face the commitment of the diversity, although Trump asked the US Ministry of Justice to examine whether these types of programs have discriminated against employees whose breed or gender does not match the goals of the initiatives .
But the CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, has maintained a warm relationship with Trump since his first term, an alliance that has helped the company so far to have rock tariffs on his iPhones produced in China. After Cook and Trump met last week, Apple announced on Monday that it would invest in the USA 500 billion in the next five years and create 20,000 other jobs – a commitment limited by the President.
The shareholder vote on Tuesday took place for a month after the same group had submitted a similar proposal during the Costco annual meeting, only to reject them predominantly.
This SNUB did not discourage the National Center for Public Policy from the confrontation of Apple about its DEI program in a recorded presentation by Stefan Padfield, Executive Director of the Free Enterprise Project of Thintank, who claimed that “forced variety was bad for business”.
In the presentation, Padfield attacked Apple not to be able to correspond to the latest court hearings, and said the programs have suspended the company Cupertino, California, a rush of potential complaints due to presumed discrimination. He quoted the Trump administration as one of Apple's potential legal opponents.
“The layer of mood is clear: Dei is out and deserves,” said Padfield in the presentation.
The ghost of potential legal problems was enlarged last week when the Attorney General of Florida, James Uthmeier, submitted a federal action against the goal because he supposedly did not properly pass on the financial risks of his DEI programs to the stakeholders.
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But Cook has admitted that Apple may have to make some adjustments to its diversity program “if the legal landscape changes” while continuing to maintain a culture that increases the company at its current market value of 3.7 tons – bigger than any other company in the world.
“We will continue to create a culture of belonging,” Cook told the shareholders during the meeting.
In his last report on diversity and inclusion published in 2022, Apple announced that almost three quarters of his global workforce consisted of white and Asian employees. Almost two thirds of his employees were men.
Other large technology companies have reported for years that they mainly employ white and Asian men, especially with highly paid engineering jobs, which caused the industry to pursue largely unsuccessful efforts to diversify.