Helping to make America great again has become this retired Home Depot co-founder’s own DIY project.
Billionaire Bernie Marcus recently made headlines by sharing that he plans to give 80% to 90% of his wealth (estimated at $4.53 billion by Bloomberg, or $5.8 billion by Forbes) to charity when he dies. But the former Home Depot HD, +0.69% chairman also revealed in the same Atlanta Journal-Constitution interview that he will be donating to Donald Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign, as well. Indeed, he donated $7 million to help elect Trump in 2016, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Related: Home Depot co-founder will give 90% of his reported $4.5 billion fortune to charity
And now some enraged customers on social media say they are boycotting the home-improvement chain’s stores, which does about $108 billion in annual sales. They claim to be cutting up their Home Depot cards, and say they plan to shop at competitors like Lowe’s LOW, +0.42% and Menards, under the hashtag #BoycottHomeDepot. They have also responded to unrelated posts on Home Depot’s official Twitter TWTR, +0.55% account with comments like “just say no to Home Depot” and “I will rot in the bowels of hell before I give one penny to @HomeDepot again.”
In response, a Home Depot representative told MarketWatch that Marcus retired from the company more than 15 years ago, and therefore “isn’t speaking on behalf of the company. In fact, as a standard practice, the company does not endorse presidential candidates.”
But Marcus, who retired as $231 billion company’s chairman in 2002, told the AJC that Trump has “got a businessman’s common-sense approach to most things.” He added that, “the truth is he has produced more than anybody else. He has. If we look at this country, I would say that we are better off today than we were eight years ago or six years ago.”
He also has some critiques for the commander-in-chief, however, such as “his communication sucks.”
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