Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman said Tuesday that he has received hundreds of vitriolic emails calling him a Nazi for his participation on President Donald Trump’s business council.
Schwarzman, who headed the strategy and policy group commissioned by Trump, said the allegations he was a member of the anti-Semitic hate group were preposterous.
“You should have seen some of the emails I got,” he said during an investment community conference, according to Business Insider. “I was accused by people of being a Nazi. I mean, I’m Jewish. It was absurd.”
The business leader also effectively invalidated a report by The New York Times, which cited anonymous sources saying Schwarzman was “outraged by the president’s remarks” following the Charlottesville riots.
“I wasn’t outraged,” Schwarzman said, according to BI. “I don’t know where the New York Times got that one.”
Several other CEOs, though, were disturbed by Trump’s Charlottesville response, which was somewhat delayed and included blame for all parties participating in the violence — both antifa, and the white supremacist and neo-Nazi contingent. Like dominoes, at least seven executives then gradually started to rescind their membership in Trump’s respective councils.
The team of CEOs and other industry leaders was eventually disbanded, but what effect Schwarzman and his sentiments had on it — which TheNYT claimed was extensive — is now dubious. (RELATED: Hundreds Of Big Tech CEOs Speak Out Against Trump’s DACA Decision)
Schwarzman said that leaders in the private sector should feel almost morally compelled to work with the government when appropriate.
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