Japanese car manufacturer Toyota has announced that it will no longer sponsor Pride parades or similar events.
In an internal memo to its 50,000 US employees and 1,500 dealers, the company says that it will ‘narrow its community activitiess’ to less controversial initiatives and instead focus on what Toyota does best – developing cars.
The decision comes shortly after US activist Robby Starbuck launched a social media boycott campaign against Toyota, citing the company’s support for radical and politically charged LGBTQ initiatives. Toyota’s initial explanation was that the initiatives came from individual employee groups and were not sanctioned by company management.
Following a wave of criticism from customers, Toyota has now decided to change its so-called DEI (‘Diversity, Equality, Inclusion’) policy, with a particular focus on how employees should represent the company on these issues.
Ending Olympic sponsorship
Toyota’s decision to end its involvement in LGBTQ issues comes just a week after the company’s president, Akio Toyoda, announced in a podcast on the company’s YouTube channel last week that it would also end its sponsorship of the Olympic Games after the Paris Games.
Toyota, a major sponsor of the Olympics, and Paralympics will not renew its contract.
The president of the Japanese automobile giant, Akio Toyoda, made this known, saying that the latest edition was "too political". pic.twitter.com/n9pRqbxx0M— Filippo Maria O di B (@filippomaria60) October 1, 2024
According to Toyoda, this summer’s Olympic Games showed that the event has become ‘increasingly political’.
– I’ve wondered for a while now whether the event is truly putting athletes first… It is also becoming increasingly political. The Olympics should simply be about watching athletes from all walks of life, with all types of challenges, achieve the impossible, Toyoda said.
Toyota signed a 10-year sponsorship deal with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 2015, which was reported to be worth $835 million, making it the IOC’s largest sponsorship deal at the time.
The contract covered four Olympic Games with the possibility of renewal when it expired in 2025. Akio Toyoda now says he has “become disillusioned with the event, which no longer puts athletes first”.