Chevron thinks men can fix the diversity problem

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Chevron’s big diversity push? Talk to men

DealBook exclusive: The energy company plans to announce today that it has given $5 million to Catalyst, a nonprofit focused on making corporate America more hospitable toward women.

It’s funding Men Advocating Real Change, a Catalyst campaign that teaches male executives how to improve diversity and inclusion at their companies. (Among its tactics: lessons on unconscious bias.) Lorraine Hariton, Catalyst’s C.E.O., said it was the single biggest grant in the nonprofit’s 50-year history.

Chevron has been a longtime supporter of Catalyst. It began working with the nonprofit 20 years ago, and Mike Wirth, the oil and gas giant’s C.E.O., helped introduce this program to the company two years ago. It now runs in seven Chevron offices worldwide.

Diversity and inclusion has improved at Chevron. In 2010, only 6 percent of its board and 11 percent of its management committee were women. Now, it’s 36 percent for the board and 20 percent for the management committee. “I think the business case for this is compelling,” Mr. Wirth told Michael de la Merced of DealBook, saying more diversity has improved innovation.

But there’s still a lot to do. Mr. Wirth said that oil and gas needed far more women in engineering and technical roles. And Ms. Hariton said that while companies have been hiring more women, the number of top female executives remains too small.

As Trump softens on China, critics circle

President Trump is facing increasing pressure from Republicans, Democrats and even some of his own advisers to win the kind of large concessions that Beijing has long resisted, Alan Rappeport of the NYT writes.

Mr. Trump has softened his threats against China. “Citing ‘substantial progress’ in talks between the United States and China, Mr. Trump on Sunday evening halted plans to raise tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods at the end of this week,” Mr. Rappeport explains.

But the Chinese may be dangling false promises, some top Democrats say, in hopes of ending a trade war that is damaging their economy, as well as hurting American farmers. Some Republicans fear that Mr. Trump may settle for a deal that simply reduces the trade deficit and offers relief to Huawei, the Chinese telecom giant.

Many big sticking points remain, including China’s state subsidies for its businesses. Beijing also still appears to be falling short of the administration’s demands over intellectual property and cybertheft.

“The blowback from both directions may leave Mr. Trump little choice but to keep the threat of tariffs alive so that he can continue to claim he’s being tough on China, analysts said,” according to Mr. Rappeport.

More: The FT imagines what a trade deal might look like. Trade war is only one of the threats worrying President Xi Jinping of Chin. U.S. companies are planning their lowest rate of expansion in China since 2016. And a delay on further tariffs probably staved off inflation in America.

Elon Musk’s tweets anger the S.E.C., again

The Securities and Exchange Commission says a series of tweets Elon Musk published last week violate its agreement with Tesla, and wants him held in contempt of court.

Mr. Musk got in trouble last year by tweeting that he had “funding secured” to take Tesla private, when that wasn’t exactly the case. Tesla settled, promising the S.E.C. that it would set up “mandatory procedures to oversee and preapprove Mr. Musk’s Tesla-related written communications.”

Then last week, he tweeted about a manufacturing triumph, saying Tesla would make “around 500,000” cars this year, up from a target of 400,000. He soon corrected himself and repeated the target of 400,000 deliveries. Tesla’s lawyers conceded that Mr. Musk hadn’t had his tweets reviewed, but argued “the substance” of his post had already been vetted and publicly disclosed.

Mr. Musk followed up by needling the S.E.C., tweeting that it “forgot to read Tesla earnings transcript,” in which he forecast production of between 350,000 and 500,000 cars. “How embarrassing,” he added.

“This is not an innocuous tweet,” Rebecca Roiphe, a professor at New York Law School, told the NYT. “Insiders have to be careful about revealing misleading information to the public.”

Punishments the S.E.C. could seek, Ms. Roiphe said, include a fine, more restrictions on Mr. Musk’s social media use, or even his removal as C.E.O.

Is the game changing on Brexit?

With just over a month to go before Britain is scheduled to leave the E.U., Prime Minister Theresa May could U-turn on her commitment to keeping to schedule. And the opposition leader, Jeremy Corbyn, under heavy pressure, has promised to support a second public vote.

Mrs. May is letting her cabinet think the unthinkable. The prime minister, who has repeatedly insisted that Brexit will occur on March 29, will allow her colleagues “to discuss extending the deadline” today, according to Bloomberg, which sets out what she’d be risking and why:

• “On one hand, it would avert mass resignations from pro-E.U. ministers in May’s team, and potentially a defeat in Parliament this week.”
• “But it would also risk a destabilizing backlash from Euroskeptic Conservatives.”

And Mr. Corbyn has made a big concession to pro-Europeans. He had long resisted a second Brexit referendum, but has had to reconsider after several pro-E.U. lawmakers quit his Labour Party. Stephen Castle of the NYT explains what the reversal means:

• “At the moment, it is unlikely that a second vote would win a majority in Parliament because most lawmakers still oppose the idea.”
• “But if Mrs. May’s Brexit plan is rejected next month for a second time, then the calculation in Parliament could change.”

The misery of Facebook’s moderators

Dozens of current and former employees of a company called Cognizant, which reviews content for the social network, spoke to the Verge. The investigation makes for grim reading:

• “Employees described a workplace that is perpetually teetering on the brink of chaos. It is an environment where workers cope by telling dark jokes about committing suicide, then smoke weed during breaks to numb their emotions.”
• “In stark contrast to the perks lavished on Facebook employees, team leaders micromanage content moderators’ every bathroom and prayer break,” and employees “have been found having sex inside stairwells.”
• “They are pressured not to discuss the emotional toll that their job takes on them, even with loved ones, leading to increased feelings of isolation and anxiety.”
• “Moderators told me it’s a place where the conspiracy videos and memes that they see each day gradually lead them to embrace fringe views. One auditor walks the floor promoting the idea that the Earth is flat.”
• “Moderators in Phoenix will make just $28,800 per year — while the average Facebook employee has a total compensation of $240,000.”

Facebook’s response: In a statement yesterday, it said it was “putting in place a rigorous and regular compliance and audit process for all of our outsourced partners to ensure they are complying with the contracts and care we expect.”

Bank of America kills off Merrill Lynch

Bank of America plans to erase the Merrill Lynch name from its investment banking and trading arms. They’ll go by “BofA Securities” rather than “Bank of America Merrill Lynch,” and its wealth-management unit will be “Merrill.”

It’s the end of an era. Merrill Lynch was one of the best-known names on Wall Street when Bank of America bought it during the 2008 financial crisis. At the time, Bank of America was a big lender, built from years of acquisitions — but a minnow in high finance.

The combined firm struggled with culture clashes. Longtime Merrill employees were proud of “Mother Merrill” and the “thundering herd” that was its wealth-management arm. The WSJ reports that Bank of America backed away from changing the name before.

But now it wants a seamless identity. “We are continuing to unify the company, continuing down the road we started on a decade ago,” Bank of America’s C.E.O., Brian Moynihan, told the WSJ. (He has also pushed the firm into safe businesses, de-emphasizing the risk-taking that left Merrill needing a buyer.)

The only place where staying as Merrill made sense was in wealth management. Mr. Moynihan called it “the No. 1 brand there is.”

Yellen says Trump doesn’t get the Fed

Last year, President Trump replaced Janet Yellen with Jerome Powell as head of the Federal Reserve. Since, Mr. Trump has broken with precedent by publicly criticizing Mr. Powell for raising interest rates. Ms. Yellen has now made clear what she thinks of all that in an interview with Marketplace.

• When the host of Marketplace, Kai Ryssdal, asked if she thought the president “has a grasp of macroeconomic policy,” Ms. Yellen replied, “No, I do not.”
• When asked to elaborate, she said, “Well, I doubt that he would even be able to say that the Fed’s goals are maximum employment and price stability.”
• “He’s made comments about the Fed having an exchange rate objective in order to support his trade plans, or possibly targeting the U.S. balance of trade,” she added. “And, you know, I think comments like that shows a lack of understanding of the impact of the Fed on the economy, and appropriate policy goals.”

Revolving door

Amazon added the former PepsiCo C.E.O. Indra Nooyi to its board.

The speed read

Deals

• G.E., continuing to dismantle itself, agreed to sell its biopharmaceutical business to Danaher for $21.4 billion. (NYT)
• Warren Buffett admitted that Berkshire Hathaway overpaid for its stake in Kraft Heinz and said it wouldn’t buy more shares: “The business does not earn more just because you pay more for it.” (Bloomberg)
• Barrick Gold’s $17.8 billion bid for Newmont Mining has cast a spotlight on two top deal makers: Barrick’s chairman, John Thornton, and Michael Klein, the rainmaker advising him. (Bloomberg)
• How lesser-known private equity firms like Veritas Capital and CC Capital are stealing the limelight from larger rivals. (FT)
• The telecom company Windstream filed for bankruptcy protection after losing a court fight with a hedge fund. (Barron’s)

Politics and policy

• Michael Cohen reportedly plans to tell the House Oversight Committee today that President Trump broke the law while in office. (WSJ)
• The Senate appears likely to vote against Mr. Trump’s emergency declaration for a border wall. (Politico)
• Alva Johnson, who worked on the 2016 Trump campaign, has accused Mr. Trump of forcibly kissing her. (NYT)
• Elizabeth Warren plans to forego fund-raising events with big donors. (NYT)
• Meet Andrew Goldstein, one of Robert Mueller’s top deputies for his investigation into the president. (NYT)

Tech

• Telecom equipment appears not to be the only Chinese tech that makes the U.S. government nervous. (CNBC)
• California lawmakers want to toughen the state’s already-strict privacy laws. (Bloomberg)
• Microsoft defended its military work after protests from some employees last week. (Wired)
• Why Toronto is attracting top tech talent. (FT)
• T-Mobile has delayed its full 5G launch until later in 2019. (Verge)

Best of the rest

• Do two troubled banks make one good one? Germany may soon find out. (NYT)
• Why proving Jeff Bezos’ accusations of blackmail and extortion could be tricky. (NYT)
• Lyft’s I.P.O. has revived a debate: Should a minority of investors be allowed to control a company through dual-class shares? (FT)
• The current stock market rally has everything — except investors. (NYT)

Thanks for reading! We’ll see you tomorrow.

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