Key Points
- Corporate leaders broke their near year of silence on President Donald Trump’s policies after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis.
- Yet it’s clear business leaders are treading carefully as they face possible retribution from the White House or risk backlash from a divided American public.
- “They don’t want to speak out alone because they are afraid,” Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a Yale School of Management professor, told CNBC. “They know that they will be shaken down, coerced, intimidated [by the administration]. Retaliatory gestures are quite severe.”
- Minneapolis, home to mega corporations like Target, UnitedHealth and 3M, has become the testing ground for when and how far corporate leaders will wade into escalating political tensions.
