Apple, Costco, Delta Kept DEI Policies Despite Trump Pressure, Study Finds

India-West News Desk

WASHINGTON, DC – US companies that retained their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies despite political pressure performed just as well financially as those that scaled back or abandoned them, according to new research.

The study, conducted by Jacob Grumbach, an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy, examined how S&P 500 companies performed after President Donald Trump’s January 2025 executive order targeting DEI programs.

Grumbach used “abnormal returns” – the gap between a company’s expected stock performance and what it actually delivered – to assess the financial impact of corporate decisions on DEI.

The research found that companies that kept their DEI policies, or rejected shareholder resolutions seeking to roll them back, performed no worse financially than those that withdrew or reduced such initiatives. In the days immediately after Trump signed the executive orders, companies that maintained their policies actually posted stronger stock-market performance than those that did not.

Among the companies that continued their DEI efforts were Costco, Apple and Delta Air Lines. Others, including Google, Goldman Sachs, McDonald’s and Walmart, announced changes or reductions to policies they had previously adopted.

Grumbach said the effect of DEI policies can vary depending on a company’s customers and other circumstances. He pointed to Apple and Tractor Supply as examples of companies that may have faced different levels of pressure when deciding whether to maintain their policies.

After Trump’s executive orders, many companies reviewed commitments they had made following the 2020 murder of George Floyd and the racial reckoning that followed. Some dropped parts of their programs, while others reframed or renamed them.

Glasgow said companies were often responding to changing legal and regulatory conditions rather than abandoning DEI altogether.

To track companies’ positions on DEI, Grumbach reviewed news coverage, anti-DEI shareholder proposals and voting records, along with data from DEI Watch, an activist group that maintains a corporate tracker.

He said the results remained consistent regardless of how DEI policies were measured: companies that retained their commitments did not suffer a financial disadvantage.