I’ve taken on some of America’s biggest companies – my next targets are harming your kids

Robby Starbuck has become an outspoken critic of DEI in corporate America this year, using tweets to pressure Toyota and other major companies to roll back their diversity efforts.

Now the 35-year-old says he sees the endgame of his self-styled crusade.

Speaking to Dailymail.com, Starbuck predicted that within two years, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts will be in the rearview mirror in the US and even beyond.

Before then, the father of four, who has pressured everyone from Ford to Lowe’s to drop DEI, says his biggest goals are still to come.

Next, he plans to take on TikTok, Meta and other major tech companies – not just over their internal procedures, but also over content streams that he says harm children.

“If we turn our eyes to big tech and go after some of them, it will be harder to change their policies,” Starbuck said.

“But if you do it the right way with the right ones, it can have enough of an economic impact that they pull out over the course of a year.”

Starbuck has emerged this year as a hugely divisive character in America’s culture wars.

He once directed music videos for Snoop Dogg and Megadeth in LA, but traded that for a rural life near Nashville, Tennessee, where he tried (and failed) to win a seat in the Republican House in 2022.

From a farm in Franklin, he has had more success posting X/Twitter videos that expose top companies’ DEI programs and get their conservative customers to stop spending until executives scrap them.

So far, Ford, Harley-Davidson, John Deere, Tractor Supply, Molson Coors, Caterpillar and Brown-Forman, which makes Jack Daniel’s, have all gone bankrupt. Starbuck touts its “100 percent success rate.”

Toyota said this month it would scale back DEI work, stop sponsoring Pride events and cut ties with the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), which ranks companies based on their LGBTQ culture, after Starbuck announced the Japanese car manufacturer had bombed.

His wins echo past backlash against Bud Light for partnering with a trans TikToker and Target for its Pride range, which some consumers said was inflammatory.

Still, critics denounce Starbuck, saying executives who cave to him will suffer because they alienate their minority employees.

“Short-sighted decisions to halt DEI initiatives will have a lasting, negative impact on business success,” said Eric Bloem, vice president at HRC.

In the future, “more people than ever are identifying as LGBTQ+,” he added.

For some, DEI schemes help overcome historical racism and sexism and make it easier for people of all backgrounds to advance in education and employment.

Critics say it’s a form of reverse discrimination that unfairly targets straight, white men.

Others say that DEI programs may be well-intentioned but rarely achieve the desired goals, and that workshops on “microaggressions” and “white fragility” serve to deepen divisions in offices and classrooms.

Starbuck and other activists gained momentum after the U.S. Supreme Court banned affirmative action in college admissions last year.

That ruling led to a series of lawsuits and complaints against companies alleging discrimination against white employees.

Many companies that embraced DEI policies after the police killing of unarmed black man George Floyd in May 2020 have backed away from them for fear of annoying conservative customers.

“People deserve to be able to shop without thinking they’re supporting a good cause or having someone else’s social value shoved down their throats,” Starbuck says.

“Companies must be neutral and stay out of divisive politics and social issues.”

He is now planning the final phase of his anti-DEI campaign by targeting “wokery” at major tech companies.

It’s a phase shift for Starbuck, because the DEI issues are more complicated and the companies in question — from Meta to TikTok and YouTube — are far wealthier than his previous targets.

He seeks to stop not only their internal DEI systems, but also the way they expose children to violence, pornography, and messages that promote eating disorders, negative self-image, and radical gender ideology.

“The biggest concern is how their policies and their platforms impact children, because we can see the real harm, and it is serious,” he says.

“This should not be a partisan issue.”

This was the subject of the documentary Starbuck released in February called The War on Children, which was promoted by tech boss Elon Musk but panned by critics as an “anti-trans” conspiracy theory.

In his attack on social media companies, Starbuck has plenty of potential allies.

The Biden administration’s surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, has spoken out about the harm social media is doing to children, and liberal and conservative parents across the country want to separate their children from their cellphones.

But he is also wading into a deep and well-trodden debate that has been raging for years.

Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, TikTok’s Shou Zi Chew, and other tech leaders have already appeared before Congress and explained how their platforms protect young users.

An online safety law is in the works, and several states have already sued the tech giants.

Starbuck’s campaigns have been successful thus far as niche attacks on DEI. He may struggle to make as much noise – and impact – as he grapples with the world’s richest and most powerful companies.