Uber CEO Travis Kalanick Speaks Out Against President Trump’s Immigration Orders

Travis Kalanick, CEO of the transportation network company Uber, has spoken out against U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order against to temporarily bar immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim countries from entering the United States. Travis Kalanick sent an email to all Uber employees on Saturday, telling them that he would do everything he could to help those among them who could be affected by this order and assuring them that he would be traveling to Washington to speak to the President about it, this coming Friday.

“While every government has their own immigration controls, allowing people from all around the world to come here and make America their home has largely been the U.S.’s policy since its founding. That means this ban will impact many innocent people—an issue that I will raise this coming Friday when I go to Washington for President Trump’s first business advisory group meeting.”

The Uber CEO shared the email, titled “Standing up for what’s right,” that he had sent to all Uber employees, on Facebook.

Travis has made plans to head to Washington, DC on Friday to meet with President Trump so that he can directly discuss the matter.

Travis also announced that the company had already contacted over a dozen employees who would be affected by this order. He also urged other drivers who feel they could be affected in any way to get in contact with the company.

“We are working out a process to identify these drivers and compensate them pro bono during the next three months to help mitigate some of the financial stress and complications with supporting their families and putting food on the table. We will have more details on this in the coming days.”

Kalanick also added that even though some people may not agree with his comments, he would never back away from fighting for what’s right, saying that he has always believed in principled confrontation and change.

Trump’s decision faced a lot of backlash from organizations and communities across the world. The tech world was particularly vocal, with the likes of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Lyft CEO Logan Green and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, denouncing the President’s refugee and immigration ban. Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Y Combinator president Sam Altman were among those who attended the protest at San Francisco Airport on Saturday night.

On Monday, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick among with more than 400 founders, CEOs and investors from New York City signed an open letter addressed to President Trump regarding the matter. The letter protests the President’s decision, telling him that the country should be attracting entrepreneurs from all over the world, not closing its doors to immigrants from certain countries. The letter puts a special emphasis on New York City for historically being the gateway for most immigrants coming to the United States.

“We should be doing everything in our power to attract these entrepreneurs to the United States. Yet when we close the door to immigrants from certain countries, not to mention to refugees, we are telling all immigrants that they are not welcome here. We are confident that we can achieve security without threatening the inclusivity and diversity at the heart of New York City—and the United States.”

Trump believes that his decision will stop radical Islamist terrorists from coming to the United States.

“We don’t want to admit the very threats our soldiers are fighting overseas. We only want to admit those that support our country and love, deeply, our people.”

I promise that our administration will ALWAYS have your back. We will ALWAYS be with you! pic.twitter.com/D0aOWhOH4X

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 27, 2017

[Featured Image by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP Images]