Ballsiest move from a CEO I've seen so far. I'm curious as to what this will do to their PnL.

Not so much... it would be truly ballsy if the CEO endorsed Trump.

This is the same guy who said "We don't hire .NET developers"[0], so he clearly has no problem going on incendiary rants that make people angry.

While I personally agree with this particular message, it's entirely inappropriate to send it over this channel. Especially considering most end-users, such as myself, aren't paying customers, but are employees of paying customers. I doubt this is going to trigger enough uproar in any tech company to have them switch their expense reporting software, but it does set a dangerous precedent. Are representatives from Jira and Asana going to start e-mailing me asking me to vote a certain way in my state elections?

If we don't push back against this, it will become the norm, and we'll have to deal with a cacophony of e-mails with voting directions from businesses every cycle. If you thought GDPR e-mails are bad, this will be much worse.

[0] https://blog.expensify.com/2011/03/25/ceo-friday-why-we-dont...

They sent this to employees ofa company? I would immediately fire this vendor if this is correct, regardless of my political views.

It exposes way too much liability to have a vendor you hire lobbying your employees without your knowledge or consent.

Wildly inappropriate and an absolute dealbreaker. Expensify has been entrusted with employee contact information for the purpose of providing their contracted service. It's not available to them to send out any message they please.

I can't even imagine considering doing this myself.

Tech companies might not be upset by the message but I can't imagine that all of their clients are Silicon Valley tech companies.

Appalling interference in the election by yet another Tech giant. Why isn't this regulated?

I don't see how this is interference but certainly could be considered an in-kind donation, which does carry with it certain regulatory obligations.

So would it be fine if zuckerberg sent out mass message to vote for biden on facebook, instagram, or whatsapp right in your inbox? Blatant misuse of company data.

Is this sarcasm or a genuine question? Endorsements aren't interference.

Seems like a lot of people screaming about this sort of thing are the same people that support Citizens United. I don't see how they're much different. Free speech is free speech, whether or not you have access to an email list of 10m.

> First of all they are essentially public utilities, they shouldn't regulate speech as long as it's legal.

Hard no. There is no legal nor moral basis for this. Absolutely not.

There is no legal basis for them NOT to censor? What does that mean?

They are not utilities in any way. They are private entities.

They can control speech however they want in their realm. If they want to censor, it's completely in their right.

Is it interference? Where are the free speech absolutists to defend this case?

Tech giant? Ive never seen a reference to FAANGE

Total annihilation is possible for the first time ever if Trump remains. Seriously. That's why scientific American, NY times and many others for the first time in history took sides.

You have a point, but you should really look for examples more interesting than a paper that has endorsed every D running for President since the 60s.

"Interference" in this context is generally reserved for foreign actors. Isn't this CEO American? If so, how is this not a simple exercise of free political speech?

That being asked, while I agree with the message, I don't believe sending it was a good idea. It likely won't move the needle at all (most everyone has made up their mind), and potentially alienates Trump-supporting customers.