MGM CEO blasts ‘hate mongers’, white supremacists
Jim Murren
MGM Resorts International denounced “hate mongers and white supremacists” in a letter to employees Friday, offering to match their donations to civil rights groups including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
“You have my commitment that we will vigorously and zealously continue to reject hate speech and hate-based actions in any form,” Chief Executive Officer Jim Murren wrote, telling workers he felt compelled to speak after the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the terrorist attack in Barcelona this week.
MGM Resorts is the largest casino operator on the Las Vegas Strip and employs about 77,000 people worldwide.
It’s subsidiary, MGM Macau, runs a casino on the Macau peninsula and is scheduled to open its second resort in the MSAR, MGM Cotai, by the end of this year.
Murren, a lifelong Republican, broke with his party last year and endorsed Hillary Clinton for president.
Fellow casino executives, including Wynn Resorts Ltd. CEO Steve Wynn, who is finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, and Las Vegas Sands Corp. CEO Sheldon Adelson, one of the largest Republican donors, have been silent about the events in Charlottesville in which protesters shouted “Jews will not replace us.”
Murren, Adelson and Wynn each control a stake in one of Macau’s six gaming concessionaires. The three casino tycoons have differing opinions on the still-new U.S. president, who was himself a former casino executive after a failed experiment in Atlantic City.
Murren’s announcement comes after a tumultuous week in which Trump blamed protesters on “both sides” at a white supremacy rally in Virginia of stirring up trouble. His comments prompted a number CEOs to resign from two presidential advisory boards and Trump to disband them.
In the letter to employees, Murren listed seven groups worthy of employee contributions, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Anti-Defamation League. MDT/Bloomberg
