People are calling for another boycott of Uber after CEO Dara Khosrowshahi called Saudi Arabia’s killing and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi “a serious mistake.”
The comment came during an interview Sunday with Khosrowshahi on Axios on HBO. By Monday morning, #BoycottUber was trending on Twitter.
The ride-share company has two significant ties to Saudi Arabia. The Middle Eastern country is Uber’s fifth-largest shareholder, and Yasir Al-Rumayyan, managing director of the country’s Public Investment Fund, sits on the San Francisco-based business’s board.
“We’ve made mistakes too, right, with self-driving,” Khosrowshahi continued during the interview. “So I think that people make mistakes. It doesn’t mean that they can never be forgiven.”
Social media lit up with comments about what many viewed as a tone-deaf stance.
About an hour after the interview, the Uber CEO reached out to Axios to edit what he’d said, according to a tweet by Dan Primack, the Axios business editor who conducted the interview. That was later followed up with a written statement.
There’s no forgiving or forgetting what happened to Jamal Khashoggi & I was wrong to call it a “mistake.” As I told @danprimack after our interview, I said something in the moment I don’t believe. Our investors have long known my views here & I’m sorry I wasn’t as clear on Axios https://t.co/RxapzktrXq
— dara khosrowshahi (@dkhos) November 11, 2019