A new wave of consumer activism is sweeping the nation, with protests and boycotts targeting companies in a fraught political environment. Is Wall Street bracing for the impact, if any?
For more than a month now, for example, Michael Galvez, a leading figure in the Latino Freeze Movement, has been calling on consumers to boycott brands going along with President Donald Trump’s anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. We can’t keep “spending our money on companies that may not value our community,” Galvez told Yahoo Finance.
Meanwhile, demonstrators are gathering outside Tesla (TSLA) stores nationwide to protest CEO Elon Musk’s involvement with the Trump administration and his push to cut government spending.
Some Wall Street analysts argue that Musk’s political involvement — with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — has potential consequences. Even some Wall Street Tesla bulls are acknowledging the turmoil.
“While the DOGE/Trump Musk iron clad partnership has created major brand worries for Tesla, we estimate less than 5% of Tesla sales globally are at risk from these issues despite the global draconian narrative for Musk,” Tesla bull Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities wrote to clients this week.
In the media sector, the Washington Post lost 75,000 digital subscriptions after its owner, Amazon co-founder Jeff Bezos, said its opinion section would exclusively align with libertarian priorities. Prior to this, the newspaper reportedly lost 250,000 readers — or 10% of its customer base — after Bezos blocked its editorial board from publishing an endorsement of former Vice President Kamala Harris.
This ongoing chain of boycotts, including the Latino Freeze Movement, has set off some alarm bells. RBC Capital Markets managing director Nik Modi warned clients in a note that “the potential ramifications of this backlash should not be downplayed.”
Companies like Target (TGT), Walmart (WMT), Bezos’s Amazon (AMZN), and Coca-Cola (KO) are among those that recently reversed their stances on diversity, along with Google (GOOG), Meta (META), and Tractor Supply (TSCO).
Joe Feldman, senior managing director and assistant director of research with Telsey Advisory Group, told Yahoo Finance that “the impact on sales and profit is a concern as an investor.”
Target, in particular, has become a focus point of the consumer activist movement as it dialed back its pro-diversity, equity, and inclusion policies earlier this year, including ending its Racial Equity Action and Change (REACH) initiatives.
