Vivek Ramaswamy has slammed DEI policies as he claimed, “we don’t need left-wing DEI or right-wing DEI—we need capitalism.”
Speaking via video at the ARC conference on Wednesday, the US politician argued that DEI policies have been implemented due to companies losing track of their purpose.
He said: “Every organisation, when it loses its mission, borrows an off-the-shelf mission from somewhere else: DEI, ESG, SDG,—whatever it may be. It's three-letter acronyms that substituted for organisations that had lost their own mission and purpose."
"I think a vision of true diversity is one that recognises that every organisation, every institution, every company has its own distinctive purpose. And each organization requires different kinds of diversity to pursue that mission," he added.
The US politician argued that DEI policies have been implemented due to companies losing track of their purpose
GB News
“A technology company may require mathematicians and programmers. It may require people who have skills in the humanities as well."
Ramaswamy also shared hope for the future, as he suggested the “tide has now changed”.
“I think that peak DEI and peak woke, I'm pleased to say, is behind us. But that leaves our work cut out for us. It’s up to organisations and nations to revive their true purpose. Because if we don't, that still leaves a black hole and a void that DEI 2.0 is just going to fill instead," he said.
The entrepreneur’s comments come as the Trump administration has been cracking down on funding for DEI policies in the government and other entities.
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On Friday, universities in the US received a letter from The Department of Education warning them of funding cuts if they continue implementing DEI initiatives that the Trump administration considers illegal.
When asked if Ramaswamy believes corporations should adopt a “Maga-like” agenda in the future, he replied he did not believe so, arguing that Trump’s administration is simply attempting to “revive the basic principles of merit”.
“We shouldn't mix politics and business because they're in separate domains of life,” he said. “We should all be free, in our capacity as private citizens, to express ourselves without affecting our hiring prospects."
"Part of what you saw in the U.S. was people being fired for wearing the wrong hat or attending the wrong political rally. Certainly in the American context, that was un-American.”
The Trump administration has been cracking down on funding for DEI policies in the government and other entities
REUTERSHe added: “We don't need to see a version of left-wing DEI replaced with right-wing DEI, or a new version of thinking where, just because corporate boardrooms adopted left-wing policies, we somehow expect them to adopt conservative policies."
The politician said it was time to “bring back the truest form of capitalism itself”.
“Whether in baseball fields, biotech labs, manufacturing facilities, or sports arenas, you shouldn’t have to care about the politics or identity of the person next to you. You should be bound in common purpose. That too is part of what pure capitalism offers," he said.
Ramaswamy concluded by saying he did not want to see capitalism corrupted by any political influence, saying “not everything is political”.
“There are pieces of life that exist completely outside politics. There is private conscience. There are corporations. There is sports, there is art. We don’t have to politicise everything. And the government doesn't have to be in every personal space."
