BlowBack From Trump's Muslim Ban Order

 Grassroots pressure has proven effective at several other moments since Trump became president. The two Republican senators who came out against Betsy DeVos, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, cited constituent phone calls as a key factor in their decision. The administration watered down (aka “clarified”) its refugee ban to exempt green-card holders after the massive protests at airports.
 Apple CEO Tim Cook and PayPal founder Peter Thiel listen as Trump speaks during a meeting with technology industry leaders at Trump Tower on Dec. 14. (Evan Vucci/AP)

“Silicon Valley is littered with immigrant success stories: Satya Nadella, the chief executive of Microsoft, is an immigrant from India; Google co-founder Sergey Brin is a refugee from the former Soviet Union; and Omid Kordestani, Twitter’s executive chairman, was born in Iran. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was the son of a Syrian immigrant, leading Cook to say, in a letter denouncing Trump’s travel ban, that the company ‘wouldn’t exist’ if such a ban had been in place,” Elizabeth Dwoskin and Craig Timberg report from San Francisco. Five nuggets from their story:

• A little more than half of U.S. start-ups that are estimated to be worth more than $1 billion were founded by immigrants, according to the National Foundation for American Policy, an Arlington think tank.
• In a new open letter, more than 115 Silicon Valley start-up founders and venture capitalists plead with the administration to cancel the immigration ban.
• Another letter from executives at Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple and others is also being drafted.
• Amazon and Expedia have joined a lawsuit brought by the state of Washington against the immigration ban.
• Some tech companies are now considering whether to move jobs out of the United States to places with more relaxed immigration policies, such as Vancouver and Dublin.

 Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has been under fire for weeks. (File)

-- Uber was particularly susceptible to a customer boycott because it is most popular in urban areas, where Democrats are strongest. Kalanick, the CEO, claimed yesterday that he made his decision to drop out of Trump’s business council after hearing the stories of Uber drivers, specifically refugees from Egypt and Vietnam. But it probably had more to do with

200,000-plus customers deleting their accounts in response to a campaign called #deleteUber.

Lyft rode a wave of frustration with its arch-rival to become the most downloaded program on Apple’s AppStore over the past few days. Lyft announced that it will also no longer allow ads for its service to run on Breitbart, formerly run by White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, and announced it will donate $1 million to the ACLU, which is fighting the Trump refugee ban in court.

Earlier in the week Uber said it would put up $3 million to help its drivers with immigration legal costs, but that did almost nothing to squelch the blowback. “The implicit assumption that Uber (or I) was somehow endorsing the Administration’s agenda has created a perception-reality gap between who people think we are, and who we actually are,” Kalanick said yesterday.

The ride-sharing service has faced multiple protests in front of its San Francisco headquarters:

Market Street between 10th and 11th streets shut down #SF#InaugurationDay pic.twitter.com/ZCsgBAqRWg

— Sarah Ravani (@SarRavani) January 20, 2017

Protestors block entryway of @Uber building in #SF#InaugurationDay pic.twitter.com/iOWBpeB28a

— Sarah Ravani (@SarRavani) January 20, 2017

An employee revolt from within Uber was another major factor driving Kalanick’s decision. The CEO faced an onslaught of questions from upset staff earlier this week. “According to nearly a dozen current and former Uber engineers and product managers who attended or were briefed on the Tuesday all-hands meeting, employees said they were concerned that Mr. Kalanick’s willingness to work with Mr. Trump after the immigration order would color Uber as a soulless company that cared only about its bottom line,” Mike Isaac reports on the front page of today’s New York Times. “

Some told Mr. Kalanick that they had suffered a personal cost — a stigma, they said — of working at Uber. One staff member asked him to present the benefits of working at Uber that could outweigh that personal cost. … Outside of the internal pressure, Uber faced other fallout from Mr. Kalanick’s stance.”

 Tesla CEO Elon Musk departs Trump Tower last month. (Andrew Harnik/AP)

-- After Uber’s CEO pulled out, other members of Trump’s business council said they’ll keep their commitments to attend today’s meeting. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in a statement that he’s going to express his objections to the recent executive order on immigration “and offer suggestions for changes to the policy.”

The CEO of the Cleveland Clinic promised to object to the travel ban directly to Trump’s face. A Sudanese citizen who is a first-year resident in one of his hospitals is stuck in Sudan and unable to return, for example. “He has an opportunity to talk directly to the president, and that is a good opportunity,” Toby Cosgrove’s spokeswoman told the AP’s Julie Bykowicz. (The meeting in the State Dining Room will be closed press, except for a photo spray at the top.)

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