Apple CEO Tim Cook has hinted that the company could change its stance on diversity and inclusion practices amid a swathe of anti-DEI orders from US president Donald Trump.
This was despite shareholders at the company rejecting a proposal that would mean the business ending policies such as inclusive hiring practices, as they were urged to do last month.
Cook acknowledged that the tech giant would have to tweak diversity policies amid the shifting legal framework.
He said: “As the legal landscape around this issue evolves, we may need to make some changes to comply, but our north star of dignity and respect for everyone and our work to that end will never waver.”
Trump has signed a number of executive orders indicating a retreat from DEI programmes, including placing all US government staff working on DEI on administrative leave.
Soon after he won the US election in November, a number of major employers began rolling back their DEI policies in anticipation of government mandates, including Amazon and Walmart.
The orders have been challenged in the courts – last week a federal judge issued a nationwide preliminary injunction that would prevent the Trump administration from enforcing the anti-DEI orders.
However, many employers continue to act cautiously around DEI due to potential legal risks, removing some programmes or rebadging them.
In a similar vote at retailer Costco, shareholders also voted against scrapping DEI policies.
Cook added that Apple did not use quotas for hiring and that the company’s culture was successful because “people with diverse backgrounds and perspectives come together”.
“We’ll continue to work together to create a culture of belonging where everyone can do their best work,” he added.
A US conservative think tank, the National Center for Public Policy Research, has been behind much of the anti-DEI action at shareholder level.
Its Free Enterprise Project, a group of shareholder activists, presented a “Request to Cease DEI Efforts” proposal this week at the annual shareholder meetings of Apple and John Deere.
The FEP said: “It’s clear that DEI poses litigation, reputational and financial risks to companies, and therefore financial risks to their shareholders, and therefore further risks to companies for not abiding by their fiduciary duties.
“With 80,000 employees, Apple likely has over 50,000 who are potentially victims of this type of discrimination. If even only a fraction of employees file suit, and only some of those prove successful, the cost to Apple could reach tens of billions of dollars.”
The FEP describes itself as the “original and premier opponent of the woke takeover of American corporate life”.
A survey earlier this week found that half of Britons thought it would be “bad” if UK companies followed the same course as US employers in scaling back DEI, although a fifth agreed it would be a good thing.
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