Starbuck targeted companies for supporting LGBTQ employees and the LGBTQ community. Starbuck attacked Tractor Supply over LGBTQ-related training and employee events, funding for Pride events, and for providing insurance coverage for gender-affirming care, all of which he said “disturbed” him. Starbuck also admonished John Deere for providing the same coverage for employees and their children and attacked Harley-Davidson for signing on to a letter opposing gender-affirming care bans, supporting the Equality Act, and being a founding member of Wisconsin’s LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce. [Twitter/X, 6/6/24, 7/15/24, 7/23/24, 7/31/24]

The right-wing pundit also made sweeping attacks against corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in general. Starbuck attacked Tractor Supply for several large donations to DEI efforts and organizations, as well as increasing racial diversity at the management level. In his crusade against John Deere, he pounced on the company’s global DEI initiatives, claiming they were “being forced on their Latin America and India branches.” These attacks are consistent with ongoing right-wing assaults on DEI. [Twitter/X, 6/7/24, 6/21/24, 7/9/24, 7/12/24; Media Matters, 2/7/24, 4/5/24]

Starbuck credits his social media crusades for policy changes, though media coverage suggests he is exacerbating ongoing policy shifts. Tractor Supply, Harley-Davidson, Lowe’s, Ford, Molson Coors (owner of Coors Light), and Brown-Forman (owner of Jack Daniels) joined a growing list of corporations that have disbanded LGBTQ and race-based employee resource groups, dismantled inclusive policies, halted funding for Pride events, or made other similar cuts. While Starbuck has taken credit for all of these policy changes regardless of the extent of his attacks on each company, several have indicated that these policy changes are part of an ongoing shift resulting from last year’s Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action. [USA Today, 8/2/24, 8/28/24; NBC News, 8/27/24; Twitter/X, 8/22/24, 9/3/24; Fortune, 9/19/24; The Washington Post, 9/17/24]

Starbuck has denied that his efforts are designed to harm businesses even though he explicitly claimed the opposite last year and celebrated market declines. In one of his attacks on Harley-Davidson, Starbuck claimed, “My goal with this reporting is never destruction. My goal is to inform consumers about the values major companies are adopting so they can make choices about what they’re willing to support. That’s not cancel culture, it’s capitalism.” However, when the conservative boycott against Bud Light reached a fever pitch, Starbuck appeared eager to do damage, saying, “You need to punish these brands. Never go back. … We now have full proof of concept we can sink products and severely damage companies who go woke.” Amidst his attacks on several companies, Starbuck made sure to highlight dips in stock market value. [Twitter/X, 7/23/24, 5/22/23, 7/24/24, 7/25/24, 8/6/24]

Starbuck has gained publicity from these online firestorms. Starbuck’s X account, which currently has over 600,000 followers, has seen an uptick of traffic since he began these corporate attacks in June. The account gained 28,000 followers that month, another 43,000 in July, and another 72,000 in August. Prior to that, Starbuck often gained less than 10,000 followers per month. Starbuck has expressed delight in the fact that his attacks “repeatable,” and has vowed to “change things one by one.” [SocialBlade, archived 9/5/24; USA Today, 8/2/24; Twitter/X, 6/28/24]

Prior to his anti-DEI escapades, Starbuck directed and produced music videos for prolific stars such as Natalie Portman, Snoop Dogg and Akon. Starbuck claims he was blacklisted from Hollywood for his conservative views after endorsing Trump in 2015. [IMDb, archived 10/1/24; Robby Starbuck, archived 10/1/24]

The Daily Wire has kept a record of Starbuck’s successful targets. The right-wing outlet covered Starbuck’s successes against Tractor Supply, Harley-Davidson, Jack Daniels, and Lowe’s. Several articles highlighted Starbuck’s vexations with LGBTQ-related initiatives specifically and the outlet quoted him as attaining “another win for our movement,” which he said “gets results.” [The Daily Wire, 6/28/24, 8/20/24, 8/22/24, 8/26/24]

The Daily Wire also used Starbuck’s crusade to promote its own products. While lauding Starbuck for highlighting the inclusive policies of the above companies, the Daily Wire patted itself on the back, writing, “Of course, other companies are now ditching the DEI and LGBT nonsense, but don’t forget that Jeremy’s was brave enough to stand up against the wokeness.” The outlet then promoted its razors — which customers have complained are a low quality product. [The Daily Wire, 9/6/24; Media Matters, 4/3/24; Rolling Stone, 5/25/23]

The Daily Caller celebrated Starbuck’s efforts. The outlet founded by Tucker Carlson celebrated that John Deere was “done with identity crap” and acknowledged that Starbuck’s recent endeavors against these companies had drawn attention to the conservative social media influencer. [The Daily Caller, 8/16/24, 8/23/24]

Fox touted Starbuck’s activism and interviewed him on Fox Business. Fox News highlighted Harley-Davidson “slam[ming] the brakes” on DEI-related policies, claiming one biker called it a “long overdue mea culpa.” The network referred to Jack Daniels’ reneging on its DEI policies as a “stiff shot of ‘sanity.’” In his interview on Fox Business, Starbuck described his strategy of targeting corporations with presumably conservative customer bases, including Lowe’s. [Fox News, 8/19/24, 8/22/24; Fox Business, 8/27/24]

The National Review also lauded Starbuck repeatedly, celebrating that Tractor Supply was “getting off the activist hamster wheel.” The outlet called Tractor Supply’s surrender “a major win for both shareholders and conservatives interested in corporate engagement” and Harley-Davidson’s use of DEI “progressive dogma.” [The National Review, 7/17/24, 8/21/24, 8/22/24, 8/28/24]

Starbuck previously defended the Reagan administration’s handling of the AIDS crisis and blamed it on gay people. In a Twitter thread about President Ronald Reagan’s mishandling of the AIDS crisis, which disproportionately impacted the LGBTQ community, Starbuck said: “Reagan couldn’t stop them from being promiscuous. Not his fault.” This rhetoric is consistent with the public perception of AIDS during the 1980s, when roughly 43% of U.S. adults believed “AIDS might be God’s punishment for immoral sexual behavior.” The 2015 short film “When AIDS Was Funny” revealed recordings of Reagan officials joking and laughing about a “gay plague” as death tolls rose higher. [Twitter, 6/11/24; Gallup, 6/28/19; YouTube, 12/1/15]

For years Starbuck has leveraged the anti-LGBTQ “groomer” smear liberally. Despite once claiming he does not “hate gay people,” Starbuck has been spouting the “groomer” smear, which emerged in recent years to disparage LGBTQ people as a danger to children. Starbuck has been an avid purveyor of the smear, saying, “If they don’t want us to say GROOMER, then we need to say GROOMER when we identify a GROOMER. …  Now they want to add GROOMERS to the protected class.” He has branded a handful of public figures with this misnomer, as well as his own KitchenAid mixer after Dylan Mulvaney made a sponsored ad promoting the company’s products. [Media Matters, 3/31/22; Twitter/X, 5/16/24, 7/22/22, 3/29/21, 6/7/22, 5/10/23]

Starbuck has perpetuated claims that trans people are violent terrorists. In response to leaked documents from the Covenant school shooter, who was transgender, Starbuck said, “The trans cult perpetuated this mental illness and it led to kids being killed.” Months prior, Starbuck said of a nonbinary Antifa member, “More trans terrorism. This threat of real violence from this type of terrorism is rapidly escalating as they get more radicalized.” There is no evidence of a growing trend of transgender mass shooters. Fatal violence against transgender people has been on the rise, however. [Twitter/X, 6/12/24, 4/11/24; USA Today, 2/23/24; CBS News, 10/13/22]