Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has decided to leave President Donald Trump's economic advisory council. It appears as if the transportation executive is looking to help the company save face following a weekend mishap that cost it plenty of clients.
On Saturday, the NY Taxi Workers Alliance encouraged all cabs and transportation vehicles to halt their service to JFK Airport as a response to the POTUS' decision to temporarily ban citizens of Muslim-majority countries from entering the country. Uber failed to halt its services, leading to plenty of backlash from customers in the U.S.
and elsewhere. Twitter was full of hashtags and tweets asking everyone to boycott the company and start using Lyft instead, a rival company that followed through with the protest.
What Travis Kalanick had to say upon his departure
The Uber CEO didn't mention it explicitly, but it is widely believed that he left his role offering council to Trump in a desperate attempt to gain some customers back. The #DeleteUber campaign has hurt the company's business already, and Kalanick responded by writing an email to employees regarding the fact that “immigration and openness to refugees is an important part of our country’s success and quite honestly to Uber’s.”
He added that he spoke briefly with the POTUS about the "immigration executive order" and how the temporary travel ban created a slate of issues to the company's community, according to an email written by Kalanick that Bloomberg obtained.
He added that he let the president know Kalanick would not be part of his economic council. "Joining the group was not meant to be an endorsement of the president or his agenda but unfortunately it has been misinterpreted to be exactly that."
How Lyft is cashing in on Uber's mishap
Rival transportation giant Lyft did more than simply follow the protest that unfolded in one of NYC's most congested airports.
Founders John Zimmer and Logan Green pledged $1 million to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in the agency's battle to shut down Trump's immigration ban.
The company also wrote an email to its customers, as well as a social media post, writing that “banning people of a particular faith or creed, race or identity, sexuality or ethnicity, from entering the U.S. is antithetical to both Lyft’s and our nation’s core values.”
