Merck’s Frazier Is Lonely C.E.O. Voice Challenging Trump on Charlottesville<br />Late Sunday evening, Kenneth C. Frazier, the chief executive of Merck — one of the biggest drugmakers in America — informed his board members<br />that he was about to do something that would have major fallout for him personally and for the company he leads: He was about to take a public stand against President Trump.<br />Mr. Frazier had been the only African-American chief executive to join one of the groups,<br />and on Monday, he was the only executive to break ranks with the president in the aftermath of the violence in Charlottesville.<br />A few hours later, Mr. Frazier resigned from Mr. Trump’s American Manufacturing Council, one of<br />several advisory groups the president formed in an effort to forge alliances with big business.<br />“Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President’s Manufacturing<br />Council, he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!” he wrote.<br />“Any time someone stands up and does something brave, rather than wimping out, sure, there is a risk,”<br />said Thomas R. Cech, a board member who was among the people that Mr. Frazier contacted Sunday night.<br />“Bigotry, hatred and extremism are an affront to core American values<br />and have no place in this country,” said Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chief executive of Blackstone and one of the president’s closest advisers in the business community.<br />“America’s leaders must honor our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy, which run counter to the American ideal<br />that all people are created equal,” Mr. Frazier wrote.
