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Trump’s incredible shrinking manufacturing council, in one chart

Here’s who is left.

Update: Trump just disbanded the group.


In January, President Trump announced the creation of the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative — and along with it, he announced a group of business leaders who would be part of a manufacturing council to advise him on business issues.

But several of these business leaders have resigned from that council in protest of Trump’s actions.

First was Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who left in June after Trump withdrew the US from the Paris climate accords.

Then on Monday, three people resigned from the council after Trump’s weak response to the white nationalist march in Charlottesville, Virginia.

First was Merck CEO Ken Frazier, who released this statement:

Trump shot back at Merck by returning to an issue from his campaign:

As my colleague Sarah Kliff writes, this is part of Trump’s fake war on pharmaceutical companies — one that he has taken no action on. And his tweet didn’t seem to have a negative effect on Merck’s stock price. In fact, it had its best day in weeks.

Shortly thereafter, Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank resigned:

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich resigned as well:

In response, Trump tweeted this today:

Minutes later, Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, also tweeted his resignation:

On Tuesday, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka resigned, along with AFL-CIO deputy chief of staff Thea Lee.

On Wednesday, 3M CEO Inge Thulin resigned:

On Wednesday, Campbell Soup CEO Denise Morrison also resigned:

This means that of the 28 people Trump first named to the council, nine of them have resigned. And this doesn’t include Ford CEO Mark Fields and Arconic CEO Klaus Kleinfeld, both of whom left their respective companies.

All told, 11 of the original 28 are no longer on the council.

This doesn’t include the CEOs who resigned from Trump’s Strategic Policy Forum. Disney CEO Bob Iger quit after Trump withdrew the US from the Paris agreement, and former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick quit after the turmoil at his company.

Recode has a list of everyone who is still in and who’s out, but below we’ve charted who is left on the manufacturing council from that original group, sorted by sector and employees. In short, even though many business leaders have quit in protest, most are still in.

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