This is what optimism looks like in 2017.
At the end of Expedia’s call with analysts following its fourth quarter earnings report, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi offered a decidedly bleak sign-off to those listening.
“A big thank you to our global employee base for an improved 2016 and certainly an improved end to the year,” he said when asked for final comments. “Hopefully, we will all be alive to see the end of next year.”
Khosrowshahi has been in the news lately as an outspoken critic of President Trump, in particular with his controversial immigration policies.
“I believe that with this Executive Order, our President has reverted to the short game,” he wrote in an internal memo to Expedia employees sent late last month. “The U.S. may be an ever so slightly less dangerous as a place to live, but it will certainly be seen as a smaller nation, one that is inward-looking versus forward-thinking, reactionary versus visionary.”
The message was a response to the president’s executive order temporarily restricting immigration from seven Muslim countries and indefinitely suspending the country’s refugee program. [Related: Federal judges decline to resume Trump’s immigration ban, siding with Washington state]
Expedia and Amazon filed formal declarations last month in support for Washington state’s lawsuit challenging the legality of the executive order. In Expedia’s brief, the company claimed its employees and business operations suffered serious and immediate harm as a result of the travel ban.
