Roy Cooper In Communication With San Francisco CEO Coordinating Threats of Economic Retaliation Against NC | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Raleigh, N.C.     North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper called Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, who then began "CEO-arm twisting" by recruiting and coordinating with business leaders, including Deutsche Bank, to inflict economic damage on North Carolina to protest HB2, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

    "Roy Cooper's fingerprints are all over the coordinated campaign to smear North Carolina and inflict economic damage on our state," said McCrory Campaign Manager Russell Peck. "Instead of defending North Carolina, its business community and our hardworking citizens, Roy Cooper is actively communicating and working with the very CEOs who are trying to inflict economic damage on the state and prevent jobs from coming here. How can Roy Cooper ask voters to elect him governor while actively working behind the scenes with out-of-state CEOs to trash the state's economy for his own political advantage?"

    The Wall Street Journal reported that Attorney General Roy Cooper called Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, who resides in San Francisco, to discuss North Carolina's bathroom privacy law. Benioff, who recently held a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton and led fights against laws in other states, then "turned his guns on North Carolina's law" by urging Salesforce's business customers to take a stand against the law, including Deutsche Bank which promptly cancelled its plans to expand its office in North Carolina.

    The Wall Street Journal's Monica Langley reported: "North Carolina's Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper called Salesforce to discuss the law, which had drawn lawsuits against the state... Salesforce had little presence in North Carolina, so Mr. Benioff turned to Mr. Moynihan, CEO of Charlotte-based Bank of America, the state's biggest employer. Mr. Moynihan then weighed in against the law... In an early-April business meeting with Salesforce customer Deutsche Bank AG, which has a 900-person North Carolina office, Mr. Benioff discussed the law with its co-chief executive, John Cryan. On April 12, Deutsche Bank announced it would freeze plans to add 250 North Carolina jobs while any of the law stayed intact."

• Contact: The Pat McCrory Committee
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