MONDAY KETCHUP: Exxon goes woke, AB Inbev's loses perfect LGBT rating, Meta's out $1.3bn, and Board Sabermetrics succession planning at Morgan Stanley and Lazard

Live from Ari-is-back-from-vacation-but-still-not-joining-the-show-palooza, it’s yet another Manic Monday edition of Business Pants. Joined by the Lord of the BS. In today’s chalky ESG high-five called May 22, 2023: Sexy Story Updates and a BS-inspired look at succession planning!

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1. Woke Data Wars

1. Adidas faces backlash over "woke" swimsuit advertisement

1. An Adidas campaign featuring a model who appears to be a biological male wearing a women's one-piece swimsuit has ignited anger on social media. 

2. Blahblahblah, I don’t care about that part, here’s the part I care about: the backlash includes citations from Twitter users like Lisa-Renee who said: "We women will not be erased. Quit trying to replace us with male models!!! We've fought hard to be heard. Quit attempting to erase us again!!!" Lisa-Renee has 45 followers and is being cited by cbsnew.com as the so-called “backlash.”

2. Disney’s ‘Indiana Jones’ Turns “Woke” With Latest Development

1. In one scene: Indy says, “You stole it,” followed by another character saying, “Then you stole it,” followed by a third character (A WOMAN!!!) saying, “And then I stole it. It’s called capitalism.”

2. This dig at capitalism drew the ire of many fans, some of which said that it convinced them not to see the movie.

3. I knew it! The Walt Disney Company is just a socialist non-profit!

3. Exxon Gone Woke!!? (That’s a fake Business Pants title)

1. Exxon Joins Hunt for Lithium in Bet on EV Boom

1. Oil giant quietly laid plans this year for producing mineral in Arkansas

2. Exxon Mobil is bracing for a future far less dependent on gasoline by drilling for something other than oil: lithium.

3. The Texas oil giant recently purchased drilling rights to a sizable chunk of Arkansas land from which it aims to produce the mineral, a key ingredient in batteries for electric cars, cellphones and laptops, according to people familiar with the matter.

4. Exxon bought 120,000 gross acres in the Smackover formation of southern Arkansas from an exploration company called Galvanic Energy.

4. Anheuser-Busch Stripped of Perfect Rating by LGBT Org for Response to Mulvaney Backlash

1. The Human Rights Campaign, whose Corporate Equality Index judges companies on their friendliness to the LGBT community, informed Anheuser-Busch that it would be removing its perfect 100 rating.

2. (Non) Apology Tour

1. Tesco Chair to Step Down Following Claims of Inappropriate Conduct Toward Women

1. U.K. grocery store chain Tesco said Friday that its Chairman John Allan would step down in June following claims that he acted inappropriately toward several women.

2. Allan will step down from his roles as chairman and director at the company’s annual meeting on June 16, Tesco said. The company, which is Britain’s largest supermarket operator, has named Byron Grote, a senior independent director, as interim chair.

3. Allan, who has served at the company since 2015, has denied three of four claims about his conduct toward women, Tesco said Friday. The executive has “unreservedly apologized” for another, which dealt with a comment he made about a woman’s dress.

4. The Guardian, a U.K. newspaper, earlier this month published a story citing anonymous sources who claimed that Allan had inappropriately touched two women, and made inappropriate remarks about two others, including at a 2019 event held by the CBI, and at Tesco’s 2022 annual meeting.

5. “It is with regret that I am having to prematurely stand down from my position as Chair of Tesco PLC following the anonymous and unsubstantiated allegations made against me, as reported by the Guardian,” Allan said in a statement on Friday. “These allegations are utterly baseless, as the internal procedures undertaken by Tesco prove.”

6. “While we have received no complaints about [Allan]’s conduct and made no findings of wrongdoing, these allegations risk becoming a distraction to Tesco. We are well advanced in our search for a new chair and will make an announcement in due course,” the company’s interim chairman, Grote, said in a statement.

7. BS: big female power gap: 42:25

3. Stakeholders Rule!

1. A DEI exec at Uber was placed on leave after hosting an event about white women who don't like being called a 'Karen'

1. Uber's head of diversity Bo Young Lee has been put on a leave of absence, the company confirmed.

2. The news came after employees brought up concerns about a DEI event on "Karens," per the NYT. 

3. The term has been used to call out white women who act racist in public.

4. Lee hosted a pair of events over the past few weeks called "Don't Call Me Karen" — an exploration of the Karen persona that featured white women speakers, the Times reported. 

5. These events resulted in employees phoning in concerns to leadership that the framing of the term Karen as hurtful minimized the harms of racism, according to Slack messages obtained by Richard Hanania, the founder of the conservative organization the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, as well as messages reviewed by the Times. "Karen" has long been used as a term to call out problematic white women who commit racist acts in public.

4. CEOs Rule!

1. Normal Style

1. Mark Zuckerberg's fortune has soared by an astounding $44 billion this year—the biggest gain of any billionaire

1. Meanwhile, in Irony Ville: Meta warned that its record $1.3 billion fine sets a 'dangerous precedent' when the internet is already 'fracturing under pressure from authoritarian regimes'

1. Meta was handed a record $1.3 billion fine by the European Union on Monday.

2. That was over concerns that Facebook data transferred to the US could be used to spy on European citizens.

3. Meta executives slammed the ruling as "unjustified" and referenced authoritarian censorship.

2. Double meanwhile: Instagram is reportedly testing a Twitter competitor — and the first leaked images indicate a summer release

1. Meta is reportedly pitching celebrities and influencers to join its "Instagram for your thoughts."

2. The Twitter competitor has been referred to as "Project 92, P92, and Barcelona" in previous reports, but no official name or details about the app or how it will work have been publicly confirmed by Meta or Instagram.

2. 7 Times Elon Musk Said ‘Do as I Say, Not as I Do’ About Remote Work

1. The Twitter owner made headlines for saying remote work was “morally wrong” in a CNBC interview this week, even though he’s the quintessential remote CEO.

2. Twitter CEO Elon Musk slammed people who work from home in an interview this week and declared the practice was “morally wrong,” despite the fact that, as head of three companies, it is virtually impossible for him to be in three offices at once. He’s the quintessential remote CEO.

2. Succession Style

1. Lazard CEO Ken Jacobs Prepares to Step Down, Yield Reins to Lieutenant

1. Peter Orszag, a former Obama administration official who has run Lazard’s financial-advisory unit since 2019, is expected to take the top job, the people said. Jacobs, 64 years old, plans to remain at the firm and continue working with clients.

2. Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman plans to step down within the year, sparking Wall Street succession race

1. James Gorman said he plans to resign as Morgan Stanley’s CEO within the year, setting off a succession race at one of Wall Street’s top firms.

2. Morgan Stanley’s CEO candidates are the men leading the bank’s three main businesses: Ted Pick, Andy Saperstein and Dan Simkowitz, said people with knowledge of the matter.

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Real life Succession, without fishing keys out of a toilet:

• Morgan Stanley CEO succession underscores Wall Street's diversity gap

• Lazard CEO Ken Jacobs Prepares to Step Down, Yield Reins to Lieutenant

Chances the CEO would have been not a white man:

• Morgan Stanley: Nominating committee influence: 39%, female power: 19%, gender power gap: -10%, women on the nominating committee: 0 

• Lazard: No data, but see below

Morgan Stanley’s 100% white male nominating and succession board committee has chosen three white male candidates, shocking no one.

Lazard’s nominating committee is female-lead, and the one black person on the board (13% of board) is also on the committee that chose a white male who’s long been at Lazards as next in line.

There’s some kneejerk reactions about the lack of diversity - there is only one black dude on Lazard’s leadership team, and he holds the title President - and has presumably been passed over for the CEO role despite having all the things.

At Morgan Stanley, the leadership team has diversity - but not in roles that, you know, end up as CEO - Chief of HR, Chief of Audit, and CFO.  The head of Asia is an Indian man, but that was never going to be CEO either.