Advice for CEOs grappling with the war in Israel: Talk to your employees—and get off social media

I asked a few business leaders, and there was no consensus. The most common suggestion was to speak up and empathize with employees—and to stay away from politics and social media.

“If a corporation felt it was inappropriate to stand out against terrorists during 9/11 or speak out against gross atrocities or injustices in any other prior context, then it can be excused from speaking out. If [not], then it has a moral responsibility to stand by its Jewish employees and consumers.”

—Daniel Lubetzky, founder of Kind Snacks and Peaceworks (a company that works with Israelis and Palestinians)  

“If you don’t speak up and frame the conversation, you leave all the others to react. The frame for this has to be, ‘I as a human being, speak to you as a friend, and not a boss. And I put my arms around you, and say, this is not humanity.’ Try and stay away from the politics…This is a time…to see people.”

—Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman

Jim Snabe, chairman of Siemens, told me that he’s leaving X as a result of the hate and misinformation spread on the social media platform in the past few weeks. “It is sad to see how hate is amplified on a platform that could be the place for dialogue and solutions,” he said.

Other business leaders suggested donating and matching employee donations to organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross, which is calling for corporate contributions amid the worsening humanitarian crisis. 

But it’s easy to get the balance wrong. I polled some international employees from U.S. multinational companies, and they were critical of what they consider U.S. business leaders’ ignorance on the matter at hand.

“Corporate America is still so U.S.-centric,” one of them told me. “These are, at the end of the day, people who consume U.S. news that reports in a certain way.”

“I have many friends who are disappointed by CEO statements that seem uninformed and missing context,” another said. “This is a huge problem for corporate leaders as they weigh in.”

I’ll dive deeper into this topic in tomorrow’s Impact Report. You can sign up for that newsletter here.

More news below.

Peter Vanham
peter.vanham@fortune.com
@petervanham

TOP NEWS

Not-so-free speech

X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, is piloting a scheme to charge new users $1 per year to post, repost, and access other basic features. The charges are now live in New Zealand and the Philippines. X claims that the “Not a Bot” program will reduce spam on the platform, yet the company is also struggling with crashing revenue since its takeover by Elon Musk. Fortune

BYD surges

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Sick days

Bosses have a new complaint: Workers staying home when they’re sick. Data from payroll company Gusto reports that 30% of U.S. workers have taken sick leave this year, compared to 21% before the COVID pandemic. Those aged 25 to 35 are taking sick days more often, as younger workers increasingly reject the idea that you should work through illness to seem more reliable. The Wall Street Journal

AROUND THE WATERCOOLER

Commentary: These CEOs are rising to the occasion–and condemning the brutal Hamas attack on Israel. The rest of civil society is MIA by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Steven Tian

Tim Cook crashes a Chinese e-sports tournament as Apple faces competition and censorship in its most important non-U.S. market by Lionel Lim

Fannie Mae’s CEO says shopping for a house right now is downright Dickensian: A ‘tale of 2 markets’ by Sydney Lake

Billionaire AI investor Vinod Khosla’s advice to college students: ‘Get as broad an education as possible’ by Jeff John Roberts

Consumer dynamics are shifting like never before. Executives from Instacart, Atlassian, Nordstrom, and Black & Decker share their strategies by Fortune Editors

NBC’s successor to Yaccarino reveals the power of NFL commercials: ‘There’s no bigger brand in the world than Taylor Swift, and she still needed help to actually sell tickets’ by Rachyl Jones

Gen Z and millennials are more into gig work than ever, BofA says—but it’s not coming close to making ends meet by Chloe Berger

This edition of CEO Daily was curated by Nicholas Gordon.