The shareholders don’t care. Yet another example in the long list of late stage capitalism problems.
The only thing these executives are allowed to care about is money & profit. If Trump is able to unilaterally threaten those profits (via tariffs or other regulations), obviously the executives have to respond to that.
Plus, Trump has proven to be extremely receptive to farcical “bribes” — just look at the “FIFA peace prize.” It doesn’t take much to placate his ego.
So the rational, easy path through for the executives is to get with the program and play nice with Trump.
Are they spineless cowards? Sure, but since when does capitalism and shareholders incentivize anything else?
