Robby Starbuck has a message for companies making public but surface changes to their diversity policies: you’re not off the hook.
The anti-DEI influencer who claimed victory for changes to diversity, equity and inclusion policies at more than 15 companies from Walmart Inc. to Toyota Motor Corp., is continuing to check on the companies to make sure the retreat is real.
A slew of American businesses have dropped the DEI acronym or phrasing in preference for terms like “belonging,” or “inclusion,” while continuing to pledge their commitment to a diverse workforce. Mentions of “diversity” in corporate filings has also been declining steadily as executives avoid talking about the issue to skirt unwanted scrutiny.
“Ultimately those companies that are doing the surface level thing, they’re gonna have the moment where they have to see the consequences in action,” Starbuck said in an interview in New York Wednesday.
He said he’s looking into one company that scrapped some DEI programs and publicized its shift through his social media account, but kept working on diversity efforts. “We’ve had a whistleblower come back and there’s significant amounts of information that are out of alignment with the statements the company made.” He declined to identify the company.
As President Donald Trump ramps up his assault on DEI across the federal government, its contractors and the corporate world generally, Starbuck said he is going to keep pursuing his own targets for what he calls “toxic” DEI policies through online campaigns meant to draw consumer boycotts from his almost 800,000 followers on social media platform X.
He said consumer companies that may not be federal contractors are “going to need people to look into what they’re doing and make sure consumers are aware, so we’ll still be doing that.”
But he’s declining offers to join corporate boards, he said, because he believes directors should be “neutral” in their political views and not activists.
He said the political left has been pressuring companies for 20 years on progressive issues, and he wants to be the right-wing answer to that.
“What we’re doing is we’re providing a counterweight now, and I think we’ll do that long term,” he said.
