How have Big Tech companies back-tracked on their DEI goals? | Explained Premium

Tech companies face backlash for rolling back DEI initiatives as critics argue over the impact of diversity measures in workplaces.

The story so far:

When U.S. President Donald Trump returned to the White House, million-dollar donations poured in from Big Tech companies and their CEOs. During Mr. Trump’s inauguration, some prominent figures included his unelected adviser and major donor Elon Musk, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew. As Trump settled into his role for the second time, notable U.S. companies including Google, Meta, and Amazon announced (or quietly made) changes to their existing DEI initiatives. They either rolled back ongoing programmes and goals, or decided to stop pursuing new DEI plans.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) refers to a wide range of principles and practices aimed at enriching a space by making sure all groups of people are represented (diversity), provided with measures to ensure equality by repairing past harms (equity), and given the support they need to thrive alongside their peers (inclusion). DEI reminds employers and employees alike that workplaces of the past often lacked equal rights for all or excluded talented individuals due to factors such as sexism, racism, religious hate, casteism, ableism (discrimination against people with disabilities), queerphobia, or other forms of bigotry.

In the U.S., the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a white police officer triggered nationwide outrage and a need to reflect on the inequality affecting Black people across all levels of society. However, some tech companies championed global diversity efforts long before 2020.

DEI schemes such as hiring diverse individuals, funding their training, or reserving specific opportunities for them are meant to improve the representation of different communities in the workplace, so that a company’s products and services can better reflect their general buyers or users.

Critics of DEI initiatives come from a range of political backgrounds. While some believe that corporate DEI measures are band-aids on a bullet wound that fail to address systemic injustice, others are convinced that DEI hiring processes unfairly reject talented individuals from majority groups.

Mr. Musk, for example, is a vocal critic of DEI. He has frequently used the phrase as a slur as he claims that DEI kills art, promotes racism across industries, and even puts unqualified people in critical/life-saving positions. “DEI means people DIE,” he has posted on X in January, despite recently expressing his strong support for the H1B visa category.