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Citigroup (C) and PepsiCo (PEP) are the latest companies to roll back their corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives since President Trump returned to the White House and began targeting DEI programs.
Yahoo Finance senior legal reporter Alexis Keenan covers this rising trend across Corporate America.To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Domination Overtime here.
This post was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.
Two more companies are rolling back DEI initiatives in the wake of Donald Trump's returned to the White House. Joining us now with more is Yahoo Finance Alexis Keenan. So Alexis, you've been following this very, very closely. A lot of updates rolling out when it comes to corporate America and their stance on DEI. What's the latest here?
Yeah, so the latest are two more major US firms, City Group and PepsiCo, joining some other major companies that have rolled back DEI initiatives. Citibank's announcement came about its changes in a memo from CEO Jane Fraser. PepsiCo for its part published a memo yesterday from Ramon Laguarta. Both companies saying that they're going to end what they call aspirational workplace representation goals. For City Group's part, they're going to stop requiring that there be a diverse group of the in the pool of job applicants or candidates, I should say, and also the interviewers at the company that interview the candidates, that no longer has to be diverse. That was a requirement at the company. They're also going to rename their DEI talent management team, and they're going to call it instead the Talent Management and Engagement team. Pepsi also said for its part that it's no longer going to employ a DEI officer. That job is going away, and it's also going to expand its supplier base, the company said. So, like you mentioned there, uh, we have been tracking at Yahoo Finance, the best we can, these major companies that are abandoning their DEI policies. Uh, there's Walmart, Target, Goldman Sachs, Disney, Google, Meta, McDonald's, Boeing. That's just to name some of them. You can see some of them there on your screen. Uh, many of these executives of these companies, uh, pointing to the decision-making process based on a 2023 Supreme Court decision that outlawed race-based admissions in, uh, admitting students to universities, and also to an executive order that was issued by President Trump, ordering federal agencies to quote, combat illegal private sector DEIs. So, uh, one of the anti-DEI advocates that's been very aggressive in this area, Robbie Starbuck, he claims that he was responsible for the rollbacks at PepsiCo. Um, also, uh, not necessarily seeing a lot of stock moves in the wake of these decisions, but what we are seeing are lawsuits. Target already the subject of a couple of lawsuits, allegedly, um, for for hiring or or not being, uh, transparent about the risks of doing away with these DEI policies or keeping them on the other hand. So Target seeing it from both sides. Uh, so definitely somewhat of a risk there and these these CEOs and these executives having to kind of tiptoe around the new policies that are rolling out, both, uh, from the government as well as from the Supreme Court.
