Also: Hamstrung EPA, Meta headwinds, and the Baltic grid.
Happy Friday.
Here’s a thought to ponder over the 4th of July weekend. Many business leaders have stepped up in recent years to address the climate crisis, social justice issues, and the challenge of training and upskilling millions of workers for the technology revolution—all issues once considered the purview of government. The reason for their activism is simple: In the long term, companies can’t survive or thrive if the planet is on fire, society is in crisis, or companies lack adequate, trained talent.
So should businesses also do more to address our dysfunctional politics? That’s a challenge that’s certainly on a par with the three above…and foundational to success in addressing all three.
The impulse I hear from business leaders today is the exact opposite. They want to stay as far away from politics as possible. And who can blame them? Divisive arguments over voting rights, abortion, educational curricula, etc., have only served to undermine the government’s ability to function. The last thing any results-driven CEO wants to do is throw themselves in the same dysfunctional soup.
But is there more business could do to restore America’s broken civic culture? Perhaps it’s supporting the kind of political reforms that Harvard Business School’s Michael Porter and his coauthor Katherine Gehl, among others, have been advocating. Perhaps it’s contributing more to those few politicians who are willing to reach across party lines to compromise and solve problems—like Senators Chris Murphy and John Cornyn on guns, or Rep. Liz Cheney, or Sen. Joe Manchin. Perhaps it’s turning some of the vast resources companies focus on minimizing their tax bills to instead maximizing the ability of the U.S. government to address problems that the majority of Americans want to see addressed, rather than cater to impassioned minorities that drive today’s partisan politics to the fringe.
There are more questions than answers raised in that last paragraph. Fixing America’s dysfunctional politics is complex, with plenty of pitfalls. But surely, it’s no more difficult than fixing the climate? Or reversing centuries of racial injustice? Or retooling a workforce facing a mind-spinning rate of technological change?
The world badly needs an America that works. And no one has a greater interest in that challenge than the businesses that make their home here.
Enjoy the Fourth—CEO Daily will return Tuesday. News below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
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First half
So, the first half of the year is done—and what a stinker it was. Indeed, it was the worst for the markets in half a century, with the S&P500 falling 21% and cryptocurrencies (recent innovation as they are) plummeting, along with stocks and bonds in emerging markets. Corporate fundraising also fell sharply, down 25% year on year. Fortune
EPA hamstrung
The conservative majority in the Supreme Court has ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency cannot currently force power plant operators to switch from fossil fuel to cleaner sources. The court said Congress needs to explicitly give the EPA that power, before it can exercise it. Fortune
Meta headwinds
In anticipation of what CEO Mark Zuckerberg said “might be one of the worst downturns that we’ve seen in recent history,” Meta has scaled back its hiring plans, reducing its engineer-hiring target for the year by at least 30%. Reuters
Baltic grid
European grid operators have a long-term plan to switch the Baltic states—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—from Russia’s grid to the EU’s. And now, given Russia’s belligerence, they say they’re ready to make that switch immediately, rather than in three years’ time. Reuters
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The cost of buying green As concerns around personal finances rise globally, more shoppers face choices between what’s sustainable for the planet and what’s sustainable for their wallets. Learn how business leaders may help break the cycle of trade-offs between price, performance, and sustainability. Explore the possibilities
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Tesla market share
Tesla’s share of the U.S. electric-vehicle market could drop as low as 11% in 2025, due to a flurry of new competitors from the likes of GM and Ford. That’s according to Bank of America analyst John Murphy. Tesla currently has more than 70% of the market. Bloomberg
Nio saga
Fortune’s Grady McGregor examines the turmoil around Chinese EV maker Nio, which short-sellers have accused of illegally inflating its revenue and profit figures, and which recently suffered a bizarre and fatal car crash: “Nio denies Grizzly Research's claims, and some investors remain upbeat, but the short-seller account is likely to inflict more lasting damage than the parking garage crash, providing another test for Nio, which only recently came back from the near-dead.” Fortune
Figs plans
Direct-to-consumer scrubs firm Figs wants to see its product “become the de facto uniform for all health care workers, from nurses to dentists to vets to surgeons,” writes Fortune’s Phil Wahba. Wall Street isn’t sure, but co-CEOs Heather Hasson and Trina Spear see plenty of room for growth. Fortune
Ancestry CEO
Wahba also interviewed Ancestry.com CEO Deborah Liu about hir first 90 days at the company, and how racism in South Carolina “sparked an intense desire to succeed so she could get out of the South, and also made her combative early in her career. Now 46 and with a number of high powered jobs behind her at marquee companies like PayPal and eBay, Liu admits that she has mellowed as she's matured, encouraged to do so by her mentor, outgoing Meta operations chief Sheryl Sandberg.” Fortune
This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer.
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