By DAVID GELLES and KATIE THOMAS
August 14, 2017
Late Sunday evening, Kenneth C. Frazier, the chief executive of Merck — one of the biggest drugmakers in America — informed his board members that he was about to do something that would have major fallout for him personally and for the company he leads: He was about to take a public stand against President Trump.
As white nationalists in Charlottesville, Va., clashed with counterprotesters and Mr. Trump offered an ambiguous response to the violence, Mr. Frazier decided to act. If the president could not condemn the hate groups, Mr. Frazier could not support him.
A few hours later, Mr. Frazier resigned from Mr. Trump’s American Manufacturing Council, one of several advisory groups the president formed in an effort to forge alliances with big business. Mr. Frazier had been the only African-American chief executive to join one of the groups, and on Monday, he was the only executive to break ranks with the president in the aftermath of the violence in Charlottesville.
Of the dozens of chief executives who have agreed to advise Mr. Trump, none other than Mr. Frazier criticized the president’s initial response to the ugly episode, and none came to Mr. Frazier’s defense after the president attacked him on Twitter.
The muted response from business leaders was a reminder that while big companies are increasingly willing to take public stands on many contentious social issues, they also covet their access to a business-friendly White House and are being careful not to jeopardize their relationship with the president.
Mr. Frazier’s decision was made public through a statement on Merck’s Twitter account early Monday.
“America’s leaders must honor our fundamental views by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy, which run counter to the American ideal that all people are created equal,” Mr. Frazier wrote. “As C.E.O. of Merck and as a matter of personal conscience, I feel a responsibility to take a stand against extremism.”
The decision seemed certain to draw the ire of a president famously sensitive to personal slights. And sure enough, Mr. Trump lashed out at Mr. Frazier on Twitter less than an hour later.
“Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President’s Manufacturing Council, he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!” he wrote.
Even after the president’s taunting, members of the Merck board said they supported Mr. Frazier’s decision.
“Any time someone stands up and does something brave, rather than wimping out, sure, there is a risk,” said Thomas R. Cech, a board member who was among the people that Mr. Frazier contacted Sunday night. “You put your name and your company’s name in the spotlight, and people who don’t like what you did can find ways to try to retaliate.”
But Mr. Frazier emerged as a lonely voice on Monday. While other top executives made statements denouncing racism and bigotry generally, none directly criticized Mr. Trump or lent their support to Mr. Frazier.
“Bigotry, hatred and extremism are an affront to core American values and have no place in this country,” said Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chief executive of Blackstone and one of the president’s closest advisers in the business community. “I am deeply saddened and troubled by the tragic events in Charlottesville.”
And even as Republican senators and others in Mr. Trump’s own party criticized him for his initial response to the violence on Sunday, other members of Mr. Trump’s manufacturing council declined to follow Mr. Frazier’s lead.
Michael Dell, chief executive of Dell Technologies, will remain on the White House manufacturing advisory council, the company said. In an email, Dave Farmer, a Dell spokesman, said there was “no change in Dell engaging with the Trump administration” to “share our perspective on policy issues that affect our company, our customers and our employees.”
General Electric said in a statement that it had “no tolerance for hate, bigotry or racism,” but added that Jeff Immelt, the company’s chairman and recently retired chief executive, would also continue on the council.
And after drawing fire for his initial reaction to the violence in Charlottesville, Mr. Trump on Monday explicitly condemned hate groups including neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan, offering the kind of sharp denunciation of racism that many critics believed was lacking over the weekend.
This is not the first time the president’s actions have caused a chief executive to walk away from a seat on one of his advisory groups. In February, as Mr. Trump began to implement stringent new immigration rules, Travis Kalanick, the chief executive of Uber at the time, quit the president’s economic advisory council.