The Harley-Davidson motorcycle brand and business model are being “under attack” from the inside, social media influencer Robby Starbuck suggests in a recent post on X.
He cited the words of the company’s own CEO, Jochen Zeitz, who was accused of waking up when overseeing a good brand. German-born Zeitz took over as CEO in May 2020.
“Imagine standing in front of the CEO of a luxury brand who now considers you a ‘sustainable Taliban,’ as someone once called him,” Zeitz said in a speech at the Zermatt Summit in Switzerland in 2020, referring to his time as a board member of Kiering, the parent company Gucci, Puma and Stella McCartney.
A few minutes later in the same speech, Zeitz referenced the terror group again, as shown in the video Starbuck shared this week.
“Of course, Harley is all about the Harley-Davidson sound and smell, right?” Zeitz spoke to the audience at the beautiful Swiss conference.
“So I’m the Taliban again in a sustainable way,” Zeitz says in the video, as he smiles and walks around the stage and references a Harley-Davidson.
“I decided to share, creating a sustainability committee, which I still chair today.”
Starbuck, along with his social media followers and many longtime Harley-Davidson riders, were shocked by the CEO’s comparison to a terror group with American blood on their hands.
“I’m a disgusting f-king,” motorcycling media mogul James “Hollywood” Macecari told Fox News Digital when he heard the comparison.
The Taliban is a globally condemned terrorist group that rules Afghanistan. It provided a base for Osama bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda terror network before and after they planned the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States.
The attack killed nearly 3,000 people and injured more than 6,000 others, according to the US State Department. About 2,500 US service members were killed in the effort to destroy the Taliban in the ensuing war.
“Harley can crash and burn now for all I want,” Macecari, founder of Insane Throttle and author of four books, said last week in an interview about Harley-Davidson’s “wake up” policy in Zeitz.
The Biden-Harris administration hastily abandoned Afghanistan in August 2021, leaving America’s military hardware in the hands of the billion-dollar Taliban.
The government also abandoned American military personnel.
A suicide bomber killed 183 people, including 13 US service members, on August 26, 2021, during a mass evacuation of the US military at Kabul airport.
This week, three years after their chaotic retreat, the Taliban paraded US military equipment through the streets of Kabul to mark the occasion, Fox News Digital reported on Wednesday.
“The first thing that comes to my mind when I hear ‘Taliban’ is all the aggressive and horrible things they’ve done,” said Starbuck, who has led a social media effort to highlight Harley-Davidson’s influence on the controversial left. management practices.
He added, “The Taliban raped women. They have killed people without compassion. These are people who kill Americans deliberately and with purpose. They fundamentally hate our country. So comparing yourself to them, on the face of it, is crazy.
A Harley-Davidson spokesperson responded with a statement to Fox News Digital.
“Mr. Zeitz’s comments make it clear that he does not accept this character, which is proven by his record of commitment to people, the planet and profits and underlined by his life’s work,” the company said.
‘break my heart’
Zeitz’s leadership, some longtime Harley-Davidson riders claim, coincided with the collapse of the brand’s image, once synonymous with American muscle, power and freedom on the open road.
“They killed Harley. It broke my heart,” Vinny Terranova, owner of Pappy’s Vintage Cycles in Sturgis, South Dakota, told Fox News Digital in a recent interview about the CEO’s leadership.
The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally ended two days early for Harley-Davidson, said Terranova, who became an important figure in the biker business when he ran Rocky Mountain Harley-Davidson in Colorado for more than 40 years.
“They put up the tent (on) Saturday and everything is gone. Everything,” he said.
“They were empty all week. Nobody showed up.”
The official end of the rally is on Monday.
Zeitz, in the same speech as Starbuck, referred to his leadership of the so-called “B Team,” which he leads with Richard Branson and other business and global leaders.
“We’re trying to take traditional capitalism and try to redefine it,” Zeitz said.
Some longtime Harley-Davidson riders, who have devoted their hearts and souls to the brand, believe that the redefined Harley has become heartless.
“The biggest problem is not just ‘waking up’ buls-t,” longtime Harley rider “Horseshoe” Johnny Henning told Fox News Digital by phone from Sturgis.
“The biggest problem is that he just lost the human touch. That’s the best way to put it.
Starbuck, for his part, said this was evident in the comparison of Zeitz to the Taliban.
“If you dig deeper into the comparison, what it means is that the Taliban are willing to do anything to achieve their goals,” the influencer said.
“It’s nothing.
“The Taliban will do anything … to achieve their goals,” he said.
