Stephen Ross is the billionaire owner of SoulCycle and Equinox, popular fitness facilities across the country. On Wednesday, news broke that Ross was planning on holding a high-priced fundraiser for white supremacist in chief Donald Trump. The Daily Beast reports that the fundraising event is to happen in South Hampton this weekend with fundraising asks such as “$100,000 for a photo-op with the president and $250,000 for a roundtable discussion.”
That’s a lot of money to raise for a man who is openly incompetent and racist and ignorant and horrendous. But, as Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump and other billionaires have shown, they aren’t a class a people with much a moral compass or practical intelligence. Ross, according to Forbes, is worth around $7.7 billion and like most insecure billionaires also owns a sports franchise—in his case it is the Miami Dolphins NFL team.
Very quickly people hit the internets to begin calling for boycotts of the two facilities.
The two companies began hearing from their memberships almost immediately.
“Intellectual dark web” dweeb Ben Shapiro attempted to do some cleanup work for Stephen Ross and was quickly smacked down for his transparent hypocrisy and small brain.
The Advocate, who published the story initially, points out that Equinox has really promoted itself as a pro-LGBTQ company. Of course, Donald Trump is not well-loved by any community of people who don’t believe in racist/homophobic/anti-Semitic oppression of people. The paper subsequently published this statement from a spokesperson for both companies.
Neither Equinox nor SoulCycle have anything to do with the event later this week and do not support it. As is consistent with our policies, no company profits are used to fund politicians. We are committed to all our members and the communities we live in. We believe in tolerance and equality, and will always stay true to those values. Mr. Ross is a passive investor and is not involved in the management of either business.
SoulCycle’s Twitter account has pinned this statement to the top of their page.
This response seems about right.
The idea that Ross is a passive owner is bullshit as he created the company that both organizations fall under. The internet hit back with some dark humor and some factual information.
