Ron Freund
In an e-mail response to an inquiry from Ron Freund, shareholder and Corporate Responsibility Director for the Social Equity Group, a leading Bay area socially responsible money management firm, Twitte (NYSE:TWTR) announced it has posted political contributions on its website and will not contribute to Super PACs.
Tom Tarantino, Director of Public Policy for Twitter, stated,
it was just recently that we’ve published our political disclosures on the Investor Relations site, and endeavor toward as much transparency as practical as we build out our PAC.
He added,
We have not, as of yet, made any #PAC donations to political candidates. We do not make any contributions to 501c4 Super PACs. But, we do contribute to several trade and digital advocacy organizations.
Freund had requested these actions at the annual shareholder meeting on June 3, 2015 pointing out that,
While these issues are tangential to the business mission of Twitter, it is critical to the company’s role as a global citizen…We should strive toward being a leader in corporate responsibility.
Contact: Ron Freund, CFS®, The Social Equity Group, 510 644-9486; ron@socialequity.com
Hat tip to Ron Freund for this great accomplishment. Maybe Twitter was going to disclose political contributions on their own. However, in my experience, this kind of movement without a resolution or at least some prompting is rare. Of course, there are other environmental and social issues remaining at Twitter. Among governance issues remaining are the following:
- Classified board with staggered terms.
- Plurality vote standard to elect directors with no resignation policy.
- No action can be taken without a meeting by written consent.
- Shareholders cannot call special meetings.
- Supermajority vote requirement (80%) to amend certain charter and all bylaw provisions.
Comments are closed.