City profiles

Kenneth C. Frazier Andrew Ross Sorkin asked in The New York Times: “At what point do the CEOS of the largest companies in the United States tell President Trump that enough is enough?” For the boss of Merck Pharma, that moment came this week. Citing “a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism”, the nation’s most prominent African-american executive quit Trump’s American Manufacturing Council in protest at the president’s refusal to directly condemn the neo-nazis and Klan sympathisers rampaging in Charlottesville. Trump’s response was to hit out. Now that Frazier has resigned, tweeted the President, he will have “more time to LOWER RIP-OFF DRUG PRICES”. It’s not unusual for Trump to attack any public figure who criticises or even mildly questions his actions. Still, his decision to turn on Frazier – the son of a Philadelphia janitor who rose to attend Harvard Law School – was extraordinary. Frazier is a doughty opponent: he first came to prominence defending Merck against potentially ruinous lawsuits involving the anti-inflammatory drug Vioxx. And he has the opposite leadership style to Trump. “I am a person who does not subscribe to the hero-ceo school of thought,” he said in 2013. So far, Frazier’s “principled stand” has cost Merck nothing, said Tom Buerkle on Reuters Breakingviews: the firm’s shares actually rose following Trump’s Twitter tirade. Perhaps that influenced other “waverers”. Three more CEOS, including Intel’s, have since resigned from the president’s council.