Chip Cutter, and Emily Glazer
In the wake of the riot at the Capitol, companies moved to cut ties with President Trump and his supporters and fired workers who participated.
Capitol Report: Betsy DeVos, Elaine Chao, Mick Mulvaney and others quit administration after siege on Capitol Hill
Facebook Inc. banned Trump indefinitely and Canada-based Shopify Inc. /zigman2/quotes/209033712/composite SHOP -1.79% closed online stores associated with Trump’s campaign and businesses. Publisher Simon & Schuster said it would drop a coming book by Sen. Josh Hawley , a key backer of Trump’s election claims. Dozens more executives and trade groups denounced the takeover of the Capitol and called for the removal of the president .
A number of companies said they fired employees who participated in the riot at the Capitol after seeing employees in photos and videos posted to social media.
Goosehead Insurance said Thursday that Paul Davis, an associate general counsel, was no longer employed by the company. In an email to employees Thursday, Goosehead CEO Mark Jones said the company was “surprised and dismayed to learn that one of our employees, without our knowledge or support, participated in a violent demonstration at our nation’s capital yesterday.” A spokesman for Goosehead, a publicly traded company /zigman2/quotes/203794842/composite GSHD +1.50% based in Westlake, Texas, said Davis had been hired in mid-2020.
On an Instagram account, a user identified as Paul M. Davis wrote that he was “peacefully demonstrating” Wednesday. The account, public early on Thursday, is now private; Davis didn’t return a request for comment.
An expanded version of this report appears at WSJ.com.
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