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The US owner of a major British telecoms company has defied President Donald Trump’s call to scrap diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives despite a wider retreat across the corporate world.
Liberty Global, the telecoms giant that co-owns Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) alongside Spain’s Telefonica, has said it will retain DEI initiatives despite Mr Trump’s calls for them to be axed.
Mike Fries, chief executive of Liberty Global, was pressed by VMO2 staff about the company’s approach to diversity at a recent away day. He responded that the mobile group was committed to its strategy regardless of who was in the White House.
VMO2, which was formed in a £31bn merger in 2021, is one of the UK’s largest telecoms companies with roughly 46m customers across mobile, broadband and TV.
In 2022, it introduced a new DEI strategy dubbed “All In”, which it said was designed to “show great support and allyship to people from marginalised communities”.
The comments suggest VMO2’s parent company is distancing itself from Mr Trump’s crackdown on corporate diversity targets.
The US president has vowed to name and shame “woke companies” that run DEI programmes and to cut off any government funding to them. He has called DEI initiatives “illegal and immoral discrimination programs”.
Denver-based Liberty Global is controlled by John Malone, a low-profile billionaire known as the “cable cowboy”. The 83-year-old, who is one of the largest individual landowners in the US, previously donated $250,000 (£197,000) to Mr Trump’s inauguration in 2017.
Mr Malone owns a number of major media and entertainment assets, including Formula 1. He is also a shareholder and board member at Warner Bros Discovery, the US media group that owns CNN.
Liberty Global, which is separate to Mr Malone’s US interests, is less exposed to American politics as its holdings are entirely European. Alongside its joint ownership of VMO2, the company has stakes in Vodafone and ITV.
Nevertheless, diversity is understood to have been a major subject of discussion at board meetings, with the company launching a dedicated “people, planet, progress” committee to focus on environmental, social and governance issues.
Insiders insisted that Liberty’s approach to DEI was less radical in comparison to some other major companies.
President Trump’s assault on diversity has prompted a number of major US companies, including Google, Meta and McDonald’s, to scale back their programmes.
Others have refused to bow to political pressure. Apple has backed DEI and its shareholders voted against a resolution to scrap the iPhone maker’s inclusion and diversity scheme at a meeting this week.