A business-geared software company is losing customers after its CEO, David Barrett, sent an unsolicited mass email to all 10 million users urging them to vote for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
Barrett, who runs Expensify, a software company that developed an expense management system for businesses, claimed in the email that “anything less than a vote for Biden is a vote against democracy.”
“That’s right,” Barrett continued, “I’m saying a vote for Trump, a vote for a third-party candidate, or simply not voting at all—they’re all the same.”
He went on to accuse the Republican president of trying to dismantle America’s system of government and suggested Trump supporters were selfishly prioritizing their own needs over the country’s.
“They all mean: ‘I care more about my favorite issue than democracy,'” he said. “‘I believe Trump winning is more important than democracy, I am comfortable standing aside and allowing democracy to be methodically dismantled, in plain sight.'”
Barrett even suggested that not supporting Biden is tantamount to risking “civil war.”
As a result, many users began announcing that they were leaving the service.
I do have to give my sincere thanks to @dbarrett. He and his company @expensify’s misuse of my personal data to send me a pro-Biden spam email prompted me to do some thinking. Turns out we have the capacity to add users to our QuickBooks and dump his product thus saving money.
— Joe Pilot, MD (@JoeSilverman7) October 23, 2020
Deleting @expensify and never using them again after their founder/CEO blasted this e mail out to customers this morning. pic.twitter.com/QAbYcqoqQs
— John Cardillo (@johncardillo) October 23, 2020
The email from the CEO of @expensify to their customer database is completely innapropiate irrespective of your political views. Total spam. We use them. Alternatives? pic.twitter.com/WTM7ZSxxtX
— Carlos Domingo (@carlosdomingo) October 23, 2020
Friend of mine who runs a biotech company canceled his @expensify account. He emailed a few of us about it: “If I wanted to pay someone to tell me to vote Democrat I’d enroll in a university” https://t.co/6vpFCmLlNj
— Noah Pollak (@NoahPollak) October 23, 2020
One Expensify user sent a direct response to Barrett.
Daniel Rothschild, executive director of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, said Barrett’s email further contributes to the “breakdown in social trust” that many Americans are experiencing.
“David, we selected Expensify as a vendor based on trust — after all, you have financial information for us organizationally as well as the personal information of hundreds of my colleagues,” he said.
“You also have our email addresses,” he added. “We trusted you with our private information. You have violated that trust.”
I sent an email to the CEO of @expensify pic.twitter.com/RmdRM55m43
— Daniel M. Rothschild (@danrothschild) October 23, 2020
