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Under Armour and Intel C.E.O.s Follow Merck Chief, Quitting Panel in Rebuke to Trump - The New York Times

posted onAugust 15, 2017
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Article snippet: Three chief executives from top American companies resigned from a presidential business council on Monday following President Trump’s tepid initial response to a violent weekend in Charlottesville, Va. Brian Krzanich, C.E.O. of Intel — one of the most important global manufacturers of computer chips — announced his departure from President Trump’s advisory council on manufacturing in a late-night blog post on Monday. The decision followed similar moves from Kenneth C. Frazier, the chief executive of drugmaker Merck, who was the first executive to leave the advisory group on Monday, and Kevin Plank, the founder and chief executive of athletic apparel maker Under Armour, who also announced his decision on Monday evening. Taken together, the executives’ decisions are the business community’s strongest rebuke to date of a president who has courted controversy for his entire career. “Under Armour engages in innovation and sports, not politics,” Mr. Plank said in a statement. Though three C.E.O.s had spoken out by the end of the day, for much of it, Mr. Frazier of Merck was the lonely voice of opposition. On Sunday, Mr. Frazier, the son of a janitor and grandson of a man born into slavery, watched news coverage of white nationalists clashing with counterprotesters in Charlottesville, and of Mr. Trump’s ambiguous response to the violence. That evening, he informed his board members that he was preparing to resign from Mr. Trump’s American Manufacturing Council, one of ... Link to the full article to read more

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