Under Armour and Intel CEOs follow Merck chief, quit panel

Three chief executives from top American companies resigned from a presidential business council on Monday following President Donald Trump’s tepid initial response to a violent weekend in Charlottesville.
 
Brian Krzanich, CEO 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,” Plank said in a statement.
 
Though three CEOs had spoken out by the end of the day, for much of it, Frazier of Merck was the lonely voice of opposition.
 
On Sunday, Frazier, the son of a janitor and grandson of a man born into slavery, watched news coverage of white nationalists clashing with counter protesters in Charlottesville, and of Trump’s ambiguous response to the violence.
 
That evening, he informed his board members that he was preparing to resign from Trump’s American Manufacturing Council, one of several advisory groups the president formed in an effort to forge alliances with big business. If the president could not condemn the hate groups, Frazier could not support him.
 
Frazier’s decision was made public through a statement on Merck’s Twitter account early on Monday.

©2017 The New York Times News Service