Robby Starbuck: the activist pushing US companies to ditch their DEI vows

Conservatives looking to reverse corporate America’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion have found a champion in Robby Starbuck, a filmmaker, influencer and “anti-woke” activist.

Though investors, Republican state attorneys-general and litigators have long pressured companies to abandon policies designed to diversify their workforces and support gay rights, few have had as much success as Starbuck.

Ford, Lowe’s Harley-Davidson and tractor maker Deere & Co are among the companies to announce they would end some diversity work after being targeted by Starbuck for consumer boycotts. This week they were joined by Molson Coors, the brewer.

“The situation these companies are facing is a very different new world where I have a direct line to a sizeable portion of their customers,” Starbuck told the Financial Times in an interview. “These customers are engaged, and they now understand something very important: their wallets are a weapon.”

All of the companies Starbuck has contacted about their DEI policies told him they would make changes, including retailer Tractor Supply and Jack Daniel’s whiskey maker Brown-Forman, he said.

Although the 35-year-old activist says he is pushing corporate America to be politically neutral, he has advocated for right-wing causes where he lives in Franklin, Tennessee, just outside Nashville.

He campaigned against Covid-19 mask and vaccine mandates during the height of the pandemic and made a film opposing gender-affirming care called The War on Children with his wife, Landon. Elon Musk and Donald Trump Jr promoted the project, which faced controversy for its allegedly misleading production tactics. 

As a corporate activist, Starbuck gathers tips on companies’ diversity efforts from his 600,000 followers on X and researches them with the help of two employees. They study a brand’s customers, executives and directors to identify one that may be “primed” for change, Starbuck said. He uses revenue from his social media pages to fund the operation. 

“The reason [corporations] adopted a lot of the far-left, woke policies is because a very small, loud [group] of people were there and they were putting pressure on these companies . . . saying, you need to do this, that and the other thing or you’re racist, or you’re homophobic,” Starbuck said. “We were perfectly happy being a silent majority. Well, that’s not OK.”

He began by targeting companies he thought relied heavily on conservative consumers. But he has turned his attention to what he calls “50-50 jump ball companies” — those whose customer base could swing either conservative or liberal, in reference to the moment at the start of basketball games where two players jump for the ball.

The first company in that category that Starbuck targeted was Lowe’s. He shared videos explaining the home improvement retailer’s DEI efforts and asked his largely conservative followers to boycott them. The company’s rival Home Depot is next on his list. 

Starbuck has a simple explanation for how he became more influential than many more experienced and better resourced shareholder activists: “The truth is, they don’t know how to communicate in the same way we do.”

“I think that I can put together a puzzle that makes sense to people and that they can relate to in their life,” Starbuck said. “You know, when I talk about somebody being afraid to say anything about how they feel at work because they’re afraid they’re going to lose their job, that connects with somebody a hell of a lot more than a shareholder proposal does.”

Farming retailer Tractor Supply said in July that it had “heard from our customers that we have disappointed them”, and pledged to “retire” its current diversity goals and climate pledges. Weeks later, John Deere said it would ensure that “socially motivated messages” were absent from its internal policies.

Since then, Harley-Davidson has cited “negativity on social media” in announcing it was ending its DEI function and affiliations with LGBT+ advocacy groups, while Brown-Forman has said it would no longer link executive compensation to progress on diversity.

Lowe’s announced it would stop participating in surveys from the LGBT+ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign and restructure its employee resource groups, although it said these changes had been discussed internally before it received messages from Starbuck.

Ford has also withdrawn from the HRC’s workplace rankings and said it had “taken a fresh look at our policies and practices to ensure they support our values, drive business results, and take into account the current landscape”.

On Tuesday, Molson Coors said it would also stop taking part in the HRC’s rankings and drop its supplier diversity goals.

“The driving force behind this shift was the understanding that when all our people know they are welcome, they are more engaged, motivated and committed to our company’s collective success,” the brewer said in an email to employees.

Starbuck’s boycotts come amid a broader re-evaluation of the role companies should play in America’s culture wars.

Corporate DEI initiatives such as anti-bias training, recruiting outreach strategies and sponsorships of civil rights groups multiplied after a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd in 2020.

Polling conducted in July by Morning Consult found that a majority of US adults still support corporate DEI programmes, with 57 per cent approving of efforts to recruit from minority groups. But men and Republicans are most likely to disapprove, the pollsters found, and such initiatives are facing growing political pressure.

“DEI is on shaky legs,” said Emma Obanye, a DEI advocate who is also the chief executive of OneTech, a support programme for entrepreneurs from minority backgrounds. “So really, it’s a case of going back to the drawing board and shoring up the things that make sense and getting rid of the things that don’t make sense.”

Diversity advocates say the types of initiatives Starbuck has succeeded in rolling back, such as relationships with LGBT+ advocacy groups and employee resource groups, are not as effective in boosting workplace equity as measures such as pay and promotion audits.

“Starbuck is testing the robustness of these policies and we’re seeing which companies have just paid lip service to these real issues,” said Obanye. “That says a lot more about the companies than Starbuck.”

Kelley Robinson, the president of Human Rights Campaign, said after Ford decided to end its partnership with the organisation that she “could not be more disappointed” and called Starbuck an “internet troll”.

Starbuck, however, said he would keep pushing to get corporate America and school systems to withdraw from “social justice fights”.

“If we could make both of those places just neutral ground where people can just exist and they don’t have to have ideology shoved down their throat that they disagree with . . . I think that everybody would benefit from that,” he said, “and maybe people would treat each other a little bit better”.