But the president absolutely can enforce civil rights laws which clearly ban racial discrimination in hiring and promotions.
> I'm continually blown away that the modern titans of industry readily bow down to the president of the United States.
If you dont, you could suddenly find that the thing you sell has a ridiculous tariff imposed on it. Then that might mean you sell a lot less. He has done much more for much less in the past.
If you make that thing in the US, good luck having the US government slap a tariff on it.
I mean, yes, Microsoft is international, and the president could probably find an angle to put a tariff on some part of their business. Not most of it, though.
While I don't think "corporations should be in charge", I also don't think a President should be dictating corporate culture or policy short of going through the proper channels of using Congress to write legislation that keeps corporations in check and doesn't allow their power and influence to grow too large.
But... uh... yeah that isn't happening either. Instead, those in power are helping each other out, at the expense of common citizens of the U.S. (and likely at the expense of people outside the U.S. too.)