After key changes at Disney and Exxon, anti-woke investor eyes 'toxic' Home Depot, Chevron

After influencing key changes in corporate America brands like Disney and Exxon, Vivek Ramaswamy’s newly-founded firm is now targeting Chevron and Home Depot for their questionable shareholder impacts.

"I'm actually optimistic about this new excellence-first movement," the "Woke Inc." author said on "Varney & Co." Tuesday. "But it isn't going to happen automatically. It's going to take shareholders and really everyone speaking up to drive that cultural change."

Strive plans to work with key shareholders to influence positive change within Chevron and Home Depot in 2023, targeting energy and racial workplace behaviors, respectively. In a press release, Strive stated it’s aiming to roll back the Scope 3 emission reduction mandate at Chevron, and a racial equity audit at Home Depot.

"In both cases, if Strive is unable to effectuate positive change with management and board support, Strive will evaluate proxy campaigns and/or additional shareholder resolutions for the Spring 2023 voting season," the firm noted in a statement.

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Pressure put on by the firm has already proved successful this year, Ramaswamy claimed, noting previous letters from Strive resulted in direct action with an expansion of Exxon’s executive board, and pushing Disney to fire CEO Bob Chapek.

"Exxon, to whom I sent a letter calling for greater diversity of thought in the boardroom, guess what? Exxon recently announced two directors they were adding," Ramaswamy detailed. "Same thing with Disney. I'm happy to see the CEO was booted after Strive sent a shareholder letter to Disney some number of months ago."

Strive’s executive chairman spoke further on Chevron’s Scope 3 emission mandate, saying it "gained majority support" from some of its biggest shareholders like BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard. But Ramaswamy argues the emission reduction targets go further than just Chevron.

"That's to say not only their own emissions, but emissions of anyone in their supply chain, including even customers," Ramaswamy said. "I don't think that makes business sense for companies like Chevron. So I'm proud to say that we've worked with another shareholder to craft a shareholder resolution that would roll back the toxic effect of that 2021 shareholder resolution they were forced to adopt."

A racial equity audit at Home Depot creates "legal risks" around hiring, the chairman warned. Strive has said in a press release hiring should be based exclusively on merit.

"Bringing identity politics into the hiring of a great American company, that needs to be rolled back, because that, too, creates legal risks for the company and for shareholders," he said.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, a spokesperson from Home Depot said "we have and will continue to engage directly with shareholders on all matters." 

Ramaswamy has previously discussed concerns around shareholder influence on FOX Business, noting that his firm aims to address fiduciary breach by "the big three."

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"They manage 20 trusts, 20 plus trillion dollars. That is more than the GDP of the United States, by the way. But what they are doing is, they're using the funds of their clients, everyday citizens of this country, to foist policies onto corporate America that most of their own clients actually disagree with. I think that's a fiduciary problem," Ramaswamy explained. 

"That's what we're fixing by representing a different voice in corporate boardrooms, instead," the executive chairman continued. "Telling companies to focus exclusively on delivering excellent products and services to their customers rather than on these political agendas. It's excellence capitalism, not stakeholder capitalism."

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