US companies voice concern over President's travel ban

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January 30, 2017 2:36 PM

Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz, wrote to employees with “deep concern and a heavy heart” .

Donald Trump.

A group of U.S. companies, including Starbucks, Tesla and Uber, on Monday voiced concern over 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 with “deep concern and a heavy heart” about the executive order from the U.S. 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 U.S. by making the initial focus of our hiring efforts on those individuals who have served with U.S. troops as interpreters and support personnel,’’ he said.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to twitter to voice his concern about Trump’s new executive order.

“The blanket entry ban on citizens from certain primarily Muslim countries is not the best way to address the country’s challenges."

“Many people negatively affected by this policy are strong supporters of the U.S. They’ve done right, not wrong and don’t deserve to be rejected,’’ he added.

CEO Travis Kalanick said that Uber would be supporting all of its drivers who are citizens of the countries named but who were currently stuck outside the U.S. 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 Donald Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum, a group of business people called together by the president to advise him on economic policy.

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