For Executives, ‘Defending Democracy’ Can Seem Risky

Republicans have spent months laying the groundwork to challenge a defeat of Donald Trump in the presidential election. During a fund-raising call organized by corporate lawyers in September, Douglas Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, asked for help if those efforts veer outside legal grounds.

According to two people on the call, Emhoff asked the lawyers to reiterate to their corporate clients the risks posed by efforts to undermine the integrity of the election.

The request underlines the pressure some executives are feeling to repeat public calls they made four year ago, urging politicians to respect the results of the 2020 presidential election.

But making those kinds of public statements may have gotten more complicated. Executives, who were outspoken during the pandemic, have resumed their efforts to stay out of politics. And seemingly anodyne sentiments are now politically charged: Only one of two candidates has refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. That candidate has support of roughly half the country. And he has made it clear that if he takes power, he’s willing to go after his enemies.

Democracy, as a term, “has become kind of loaded” for executives, Charles Elson, the founding director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance, told DealBook.

“I think that’s why you haven’t heard anything from them. But you got two weeks to go.”

The landscape has changed. The Blackstone C.E.O. Stephen Schwarzman and the hedge fund boss Nelson Peltz, two billionaires who condemned Trump after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, have since offered him their support. And one of his most high-profile supporters, Tesla C.E.O. Elon Musk, has questioned the accuracy of elections themselves: “When you have mail-in ballots and no proof of citizenship, it’s almost impossible to prove cheating,” Musk said at a rally in Pennsylvania this week.