Skip to content

FedEx CEO Challenges New York Times Publisher to Public Debate After Paper Publishes ‘Factually Incorrect’ Story

FedEx Corporation CEO Frederick Smith speaks to Congress in a 2017 file photograph. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The CEO of FedEx challenged the publisher of The New York Times to a public debate after the paper published a story he asserted got basic facts wrong.

“The New York Times published a distorted and factually incorrect story on the front page of the Sunday, Nov. 17 edition concerning FedEx and our billions of dollars of tax payments and billions of dollars of investments in the U.S. economy,” CEO Frederick Smith said in a statement.

“Pertinent to this outrageous distortion of the truth is the fact that unlike FedEx, The New York Times paid zero federal income tax in 2017 on earnings of $111 million, and only $30 million in 2018—18 percent of their pretax book income. Also in 2018, The New York Times cut their capital investments nearly in half to $57 million, which equates to a rounding error when compared to the $6 billion of capital that FedEx invested in the U.S. economy during that same year.”

Pedestrians walk past a FedEx truck in New York City in Dec. 2018. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Smith then issued his challenge.

“I hereby challenge A.G. Sulzberger, publisher of The New York Times and the business section editor to a public debate in Washington, D.C. with me and the FedEx corporate vice president of tax. The focus of the debate should be federal tax policy and the relative societal benefits of business investments and the enormous intended benefits to the United States economy, especially lower and middle-class wage earners. I look forward to promptly hearing from Mr. Sulzberger and scheduling this open event to bring further public awareness of the facts related to these important issues,” he said.

The article in question claimed that FedEx owed zero dollars in taxes in the 2018 fiscal year, citing financial filings. Writers said the company reaped over $1.5 billion from a tax law President Donald Trump signed into law in 2017.

A company spokesman told the paper: “FedEx invested billions in capital items eligible for accelerated depreciation and made large contributions to our employee pension plans. These factors have temporarily lowered our federal income tax, which was the law’s intention to help grow GDP, create jobs, and increase wages.”

The paper had not officially responded to Smith’s statement as of Monday morning.

One of the reporters, Ben Casselman, said on his Twitter account that it was “worth noting we repeatedly asked to interview Mr. Smith about exactly these issues for this story, and FedEx refused to make him available,” in response to another user posting a screenshot of Smith’s statement.

But FedEx Public Affairs said Casselman was not being truthful. “Worth noting that is not true. We did not receive any requests to speak with Mr. Smith, but he will discuss exactly these issues when @nytimes agrees to debate,” it said.

Another reporter, Peter Eavis, noted the “strong response” to the article and said that “basically all the numbers came from companies’ annual reports.”

This article is from the Internet:FedEx CEO Challenges New York Times Publisher to Public Debate After Paper Publishes ‘Factually Incorrect’ Story