Stripe - 1792 Exchange

Rating Overview

Stripe is High Risk.

Stripe is High Risk. The company yields to political activism in shaping corporate governance, potentially alienating consumers, dividing employees, and harming shareholders. Stripe embraces corporate initiatives that redirect its central focus from business goals to partisan policies and divisive issues. This approach fails to safeguard free exercise, free speech, and free enterprise.

Rating Criteria

Corporate Weaponization Risk Levels
Criteria	Risk Level
Cancellations	High Risk
Discriminatory Philanthropy	No Data
Employment Protection	Medium Risk

Corporate Weaponization ⓘ

Corporate Governance and Public Policy Risk Levels
Criteria	Risk Level
Advocacy Bias	Lower Risk
Funding	High Risk
Political Actions	Lower Risk

Corporate Governance and Public Policy ⓘ

Rating Criteria Detail

Criteria Risk Level Rationale

Corporate Weaponization

Criteria:

Has canceled customers, suppliers, or vendors due to their political views or religious beliefs OR corporately boycotts, divests, or sanctions regions, people groups, or industries.

Risk Level:

High

Rationale:

Stripe ended its relationship with the Trump campaign following January 6, 2021 (1). Stripe also cut ties with Gab.com, however this occurred after a user on that platform attacked a synagogue (2). Stripe canceled the account of American Family Association, a Christian nonprofit (3). Stripe placed a hold on Michael Knowles’ account, and claimed that it was not due to his political opinions, but rather due to “a legally binding order that was issued to [Stripe]” (4)(5)(6)(7).

Criteria:

Charitable giving (including employee matching programs) policies or practices discriminate against charitable organizations based on views or religious beliefs.

Risk Level:

N/A

Rationale:

Stripe does not publish charitable giving guidelines (1).

Criteria:

Employment policies fail to protect against viewpoint or other discrimination and/or are ideological in nature.

Risk Level:

Medium

Rationale:

Stripe does not provide viewpoint protections for its employees (1).

Corporate Governance and Public Policy

Criteria:

Uses corporate reputation to support causes, organizations, or policies hostile to freedom of expression.

Risk Level:

Lower

Rationale:

CEO Patrick Collison is a member of the Business Roundtable, which supports stakeholder capitalism over traditional shareholder obligations (1). Otherwise, Stripe has not supported ideological causes or policies (2).

Criteria:

Uses corporate funds to advance ideological causes, organizations, or policies hostile to freedom of expression.

Risk Level:

High

Rationale:

Stripe’s co-founders both made large donations to the ACLU in response to former President Trump’s travel ban from certain countries (1)(2)(3). It is unclear if any corporate funds were used, however. Stripe did waive fees in 2020 for racial justice organizations, including some funds used to bail out protesters from the Black Lives Matter protests (4). It also donated a total $500,000 to organizations focusing on police reform (5)(6). The company is a member of the MCCA, indicating its focus on recruiting, retaining, and promoting employees based on race (7)(8). Otherwise, there are no publicly known cases of the company using corporate funds to advance ideological causes, organizations, or policies (9).