The entrepreneur Kevin O’Leary reponded to the current controversies surrounding Target Corporation on Saturday, saying that companies “cannot be partisan in any way.”
During an interview with Fox New’s Rachel Campos-Duffy on “Jesse Watters Primetime,“ O’Leary, best known as “Mr. Wonderful” of reality show “Shark Tank,” spoke about the recent controversies which have embroiled “woke corporations.”
Campos-Duffy asked O’Leary about the silence of “Fixer Upper” stars Chip and Joanna Gaines, who maintain a partnership with Target, which has recently come under fire for its Pride collection in support for the LGBTQ movement.
“They can’t win. By getting involved in this fight, they can’t win,” O’Leary said. “There are certain things about corporate America that have become a reality in the last 36 months, and it’s really hitting boards of public companies — starting with Budweiser, obviously, then it’s going on and on.”
“When you’re selling consumer goods and services, you cannot be partisan in any way. … Everybody has a personal opinion about [gender identity]. When you actually get involved in a fight like that, you lose fifty percent of your constituency, and target wants to sell to everybody — everybody. Obviously!”
O’Leary expressed shock that Target Corporation had seemingly learned nothing from the calamity which ensued from Bud Light’s sponsorship of transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney, calling the collaboration between the brewery and the gender influencer a case study in bad marketing.
“And they made a huge mistake. Now when Bud happened, I can’t believe that boards didn’t wake up to that decimation market cap. I’m going to teach that case in college… Budweiser was the American beer. It took decades to build that brand and they blew it up in 30 hours,” O’Leary continued.
“Let me give you an example,” O’Leary said. “Do you ever hear a CEO that represents a company ever talking about abortion? Never. Because that is an issue that will never be resolved. It’s a personal issue, it’s a family issue, it’s a religious issue. It’s partisan forever.”
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