“Shark Tank” investor Kevin O’Leary dismissed his co-star Mark Cuban’s claim that it’s “good business” for companies to be “woke” – insisting it’s actually “really bad business.”
O’Leary weighed in on Fox News Wednesday days after Cuban, the Dallas Mavericks owner, argued most top companies in the US are considered woke and that it helps their bottom lines.
Cuban also said CEOs should not reconsider how they move their companies forward in the wake of Bud Light and Target facing fallout over decisions that have upset some consumers.
But O’Leary insisted jumping into controversial social or political issues should be avoided by companies.
“You want to sell everybody everything all of the time. When you get involved in partisan issues, you basically lose 50% of your constituency,” O’Leary said on “Fox and Friends” Wednesday morning.
“Why you would do that when you’re a consumer goods or service company, everybody’s learning, makes absolutely no sense,” he went on to say.
“The role of a business, a corporation in America for the last 200 years, has been to serve customers, their employees and their shareholders. Their role is not to educate society on the social issue of the day. They’re learning that very quickly.”
Anheuser-Busch, the parent company of Bud Light, and Target are two prominent companies that have faced boycotts from conservatives over controversial business decisions.
Anheuser-Busch faced immense backlash and market value losses in the wake of Bud Light partnering up with transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney a couple of months ago.
The light beer even lost its title of best-selling beer in the nation this week as it continues to move on from the controversial collaboration.
Target meanwhile faced blowback for putting out LGBTQ-themed products for Pride Month.
Cuban, in his comments to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Sunday, said a dip in the market cap is “meaningless.”
“You have to realize that there aren’t many individual owners of stocks — almost all ownership is via funds, and most trading is quantitative,” Cuban said. “So, it’s not like the drop is because tens of thousands of individual holders sold their stocks.”
He also said most business leaders “have enough experience to just wait out the news cycle until they go to the next one.”
But O’Leary warned Wednesday companies that make decisions that lead to outrage have “failed.”
“When you actually make somebody angry enough to stop buying your product, you have failed,” O’Leary told Fox News.
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