Corporations that stood their ground against President Donald Trump's pressure on company policy earned as much as or more than those that complied with White House directives, Inc. reports.

Trump entered the White House intent on dictating U.S. company policy on hiring and promotion practices, with the aim of canceling or discouraging minority employment or advancement. In January 2025, he signed an executive order revoking the 1965 rule requiring federal contractors to practice affirmative action and directing agencies to target private-sector DEI programs they deemed discriminatory. The order accelerated a corporate retreat that had already begun under pressure from conservative activist campaigns aimed at companies such as Tractor Supply, John Deere, Harley-Davidson, and Lowe's. However, a new study by University of California, Berkeley, public policy researcher Jacob Grumbach indicates that companies that "stuck to their … guns despite the political pressuring have flourished as well as — or better than—those who gave in."

In fact, the accounting shows that companies that yielded to the administration's demands may have reduced the political pressure they faced, but "in no way improved their business results in doing so."

"We find clear evidence that, on average, firms that kept DEI policies in place performed just as well as firms that complied with the Trump administration's 2025 anti-DEI executive order," said the study, which Grumbach published this month. "This result reflects that consumers, on balance, did not punish firms for maintaining DEI, and also that the executive branch did not engage in other major forms of regulatory retaliation against noncompliant firms."

The research examined S&P 500 companies that weakened or eliminated certain policies in line with White House demands, including Citigroup, Dollar General, and Walmart — part of a broader wave of retrenchment that also reached Meta, Amazon, McDonald's, and Ford. Researchers then compared the financial results of those companies with those of Costco, Delta, Microsoft, JPMorganChase, Apple, and other businesses that maintained their inclusive policies, or that reinstated diversity and equality practices after initially retreating. Costco's approach had already been endorsed by its own shareholders, who overwhelmingly rejected a proposal urging it to reconsider its DEI practices at their annual meeting in January 2025.

"Grumbach's examination of companies' respective revenue and abnormal stock returns found that firms that stayed the DEI course usually did at least as well as those who dropped the policies — when not better," Inc. reports, adding that he called that "a lesson both business and civil leaders should learn from." Abnormal stock returns — a standard finance metric — measure how far a firm's stock diverges from what broader market movements alone would predict, making them a common tool for isolating company-specific effects.

"Businesses and other civil society organizations may comply with executive pressure out of concern that defiance will trigger retaliation and incur financial costs," the study said. "Our findings suggest that, at least for large corporations, these fears may be overstated." Because the study's sample is drawn from the S&P 500, its conclusions apply to the largest U.S. public companies rather than smaller firms.

In many cases, companies that refused to give in to the administration's pressure were rewarded by clients, while those that surrendered were penalized. At least 11 major companies — among them Oracle, Morgan Stanley, Microsoft, and McDonald's — have shifted their legal work to firms that have stood up against Trump and away from firms that struck deals with him, The Wall Street Journal reported. Those deals followed executive orders targeting several law firms — among them Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, and WilmerHale — over their past legal work and hiring; all three challenged the orders in court and won preliminary injunctions.

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich pointed out last year that when Target rolled back DEI, the "company confronted a consumer boycott, which led to a 17 percent drop in the value of its stock. A similar boycott of Walmart has contributed to an 18 percent drop in its stock value in the past month alone."