Unlike with Uber, it’s tougher to dump a $70,000 all-electric, partially autonomous car with few peers on the road. “Uber is a household name,” said Bradley Tusk, an Uber advisor and former mayoral campaign manager for Michael Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP. “People interact with it every day, so it is just more familiar to them. Tesla is a great car, but the number of people who interact with Tesla in their daily lives is infinitesimal. They’re not analogous.”
Still, Americans weren’t boycotting such ubiquitous American brands as Pepsi or Walmart, whose chiefs also sit on the council.
Uber’s early scandals shaped the company’s image in the minds of many people. It’s haunted by such events as the use of surge pricing during Hurricane Sandy and other emergencies, as well as its deployment of underhanded tactics against competitors that backfired. Even today, it’s engaged in lawsuits contending that it takes advantage of drivers by not giving them employment benefits or allowing unions. Lyft faces many similar challenges. Last month, Uber settled a Federal Trade Commission suit, without admitting guilt, over claims that it misled drivers about how much they could earn.
Last week’s Trump ordeal traces its roots to one of the earliest sources of controversy for the company: surge pricing. This time, people were upset that Uber turned it off. On Jan. 28, Uber posted a tweet saying it was suspending fare increases at a New York City airport shortly after cabbies protesting Trump’s immigration ban were set to disperse. Uber had wanted to avoid giving the impression of profiteering from a protest, but instead, it was labeled a scab for purportedly trying to break the strike.
The outrage was fueled by Kalanick’s perceived friendliness toward the Trump administration, thanks to the advisory council and a soft statement he put out after the president signed an executive order targeting immigrants from seven majority-Muslim countries. The #DeleteUber movement got celebrity endorsements from Girls creator Lena Dunham, Star Trek actor George Taeki and Modern Family’s Jesse Tyler Ferguson. More than 200,000 people removed the Uber app from their phones in a week, a significant increase over the norm, a person familiar with the matter has said. This would amount to at least 2 percent of all active users in the U.S. However, Uber ended the week with more customers than it lost, the person said.
Uber could have used a friend in the White House. Its continued skirmishes with regulators across the U.S. would have likely benefited from the attention of a president who favors less regulation. But on Feb. 2, Kalanick called President Trump to say he was leaving the advisory council. Uber put out a series of increasingly strongly worded statements opposing Trump’s refugee ban and committed $3 million to help its drivers who were affected by the order.
Customers and drivers achieved victory simply by following the playbook the company had given them. For years, Uber has effectively rallied its fans to put pressure on governments to further the company’s agenda. The tactic was used to defeat a measure by New York City Mayor Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2015 that would have crippled the ride-hailing app’s growth there.
Uber’s Jeff Jones, who joined last year from Target Corp. where he was chief marketing officer, is one person tasked with helping rehabilitate the company’s reputation. Another is Tusk, who advises many technology startups in addition to Uber. He said the company responded wisely when the public’s reaction reached a point it couldn’t ignore: “When that moment comes, it makes sense to speak out and act on it. In Uber’s case, so many of their drivers are immigrants; it made a lot of sense.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.