WMT Walmart Inc

By Greg Bensinger 

Uber Technologies Inc.'s chief executive, Travis Kalanick, said he is stepping down from President Donald Trump's economic advisory council, saying that his participation has been misunderstood as an endorsement of the new administration's policies.

The announcement, in a memo to Uber staff Thursday, follows criticism of the ride-hailing firm over perceptions that it supports the Trump Administration, with some celebrities and others using social media to call for people to delete Uber's app from their smartphones.

Mr. Kalanick was scheduled to join other members of the president's Strategic and Policy Forum at a meeting Friday in Washington, D.C. The group also includes CEOs of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Walt Disney Co., General Electric Co., and PepsiCo Inc., as well as technology companies International Business Machines Corp. and Tesla Inc.

Mr. Kalanick said he had told Mr. Trump he was leaving the group. "Joining the group was not meant to be an endorsement of the president or his agenda but unfortunately it has been misinterpreted to be exactly that," Mr. Kalanick wrote in the memo, a copy of which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Uber customers and drivers had panned Mr. Kalanick for appearing to align himself with the new administration, especially since Mr. Trump on Friday issued an executive order banning travel for citizens of seven Muslim-majority nations to the U.S. The White House has said the move was needed to prevent terrorists from entering the country.

Critics have said that the order is overly broad and unfair, and many tech executives have complained that it has hurt some of their employees who are from the affected countries and said it contradicts American traditions. Mr. Kalanick himself had condemned the executive order as "unjust" and vowed to press Mr. Trump on the matter when the advisory group met on Friday.

The backlash against Uber picked up over the weekend when the San Francisco company tweeted that it was suspending so-called surge pricing to John F. Kennedy International Airport. At the time, some drivers of traditional taxis there were halting work to protest the White House travel ban. Uber's tweet was interpreted as a means to undermine the work stoppage and drive up Uber sales, though Uber said it was meant instead to let passengers know it wouldn't be raising prices during the protest.

The Independent Drivers Guild, a group of New York Uber drivers, began circulating a petition Thursday to compel Mr. Kalanick to withdraw from the president's advisory committee. The group also planned to ask that Uber donate money to the groups fighting the travel ban.

"The executive order is hurting many people in communities all across America," Mr. Kalanick wrote in his memo Thursday. "Families are being separated, people are stranded overseas and there's a growing fear the U.S. is no longer a place that welcomes immigrants."

Write to Greg Bensinger at greg.bensinger@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 02, 2017 18:02 ET (23:02 GMT)

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