VW Discreetly Excludes US From DEI Plan to Satisfy Trump | Carscoops

      The decision follows Trump's signing of an executive order aimed at DEI in January.

      Reports indicate that Volkswagen is modifying its DEI strategy to align with the Trump administration's stance.

      As part of this effort, the automaker will exclude data from its US operations in its global diversity assessments.

      Trump has consistently criticized DEI initiatives and has urged major corporations to discontinue such programs.

      In the wake of a highly successful boycott against Bud Light, many companies reevaluated their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) strategies, including automakers like Ford, Nissan, and Toyota.

      Although this shift occurred gradually, the pressure has intensified with Trump’s return to the presidency. A notable example is Verizon, which abandoned its DEI initiatives to secure Federal Communications Commission approval for its acquisition of Frontier.

      According to NPR, the FCC specifically acknowledged this in their announcement, stating that "Verizon has … committed to ending DEI-related practices … and has reaffirmed the merged entity’s commitment to equal opportunity and nondiscrimination."

      Today, it seems Volkswagen is the most recent company to yield to this pressure. A report from Handelsblatt indicates that the company is "adjusting its corporate diversity strategy and will no longer include its US subsidiaries in future calculations" of diversity metrics.

      The report also mentioned that Volkswagen links some bonuses to achieving DEI goals, with a target of having women represent 20.2% of upper management by 2025, up from 19.2%.

      This change reportedly follows communications from local US embassies urging large European firms to "indirectly" halt their DEI initiatives.

      Domestically, the White House has issued several statements criticizing DEI. In January, President Trump signed an executive order aimed at protecting the “civil rights of all Americans” and widening individual opportunities by “terminating radical DEI preferences in federal contracting and directing federal agencies to vigorously combat discrimination in the private sector.”

      At that time, the government pointed out that nearly 60 years after the Civil Rights Act was enacted, significant and influential American institutions—including the Federal Government, major corporations, financial institutions, the medical sector, large commercial airlines, law enforcement agencies, and higher education entities—have adopted and continue to implement harmful, demeaning, and unethical race- and sex-based preferences under the pretext of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion.’