US firms voice concern over Trump travel ban

NEW YORK: A group of US companies, including Starbucks, Tesla and Uber, have voiced concern over President Donald Trump’s recent executive order suspending refugee admissions and banning citizens of seven majority-Muslim nations from entering the country.

Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz, wrote to employees on Sunday with “deep concern (and) a heavy heart” about the executive order from the US president two days earlier.

Schultz said he would hire 10,000 refugees over the next five years at Starbucks businesses worldwide. “We will start this effort here in the US by making the initial focus of our hiring efforts on those individuals who have served with US troops as interpreters and support personnel.”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter to voice his concern about Trump’s new executive order. “Many people negatively affected by this policy are strong supporters of the US. They’ve done right, not wrong and don’t deserve to be rejected,” he said.

CEO Travis Kalanick said in a Facebook post that Uber would be supporting all of its drivers who are citizens of the countries named but who were currently stuck outside the US because of the president’s “unjust immigration ban.”

And Jamie Dimon, the company chairman of America’s biggest bank JPMorgan Chase, also said that employees would be supported if they were affected.

Dimon, Kalanick and Musk are all members of Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum, a group of business people called together by the president to advise him on economic policy. – dpa