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David Siegel Email To Workers Threatens Layoffs If Obama Is Reelected (UPDATE)
10/11/2012
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UPDATE: After Gawker published its piece, they spoke to Siegel [ http://gawker.com/5950189/the-ceo-who-built-himself-americas-largest-house-just-threatened-to-fire-his-employees-if-obamas-elected ], who confirmed that he sent the email and that he based it off a chain email that went around before the 2008 elections. "It speaks the truth and it gives [employees] something to think about when they go to the polls," he told Gawker.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/09/david-siegel-email_n_1951801.html [with embedded video reports, and comments]


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The E-Mail Heard 'Round the World' [video]
Wed 10 Oct 12 | 10:48 AM ET
accompanying very rough partial transcript:
"robert frank has more on an office e-mail now being read around the world. good morning. indeed, simon. thanks so much. david siegel's the ceo of westgate resorts, sent an e-mail to employees saying if obama wins, they could all lose their jobs. the e-mail said that if any new taxes are levied on me or my company as our current president plans, i will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company. he said he may even consider shutting down the company entirely meaning all 7,000 workers would lose their jobs. if obama wins, he says, you can find me in the caribbean sitting on a beach with no employees to worry about. now what mak this e-mail even more explosive, simon, is its author, david siegel, the man who built the largest home in america. he and his wife, jackie, built versailles, that 90,000 square foot palace near orlando. thire fst story was told in the book the high beta rich. siegel buckled under $1 billion in debt during the crisis, we to lay off 5,000 workers, versailles wanted a technical foreclosure proceedings. the house was put up for sale. siegel says he's back now, he's paid off his lenders and paid off versailles. the company is now the most profitable ever. he told me in the interview last night that he has enough money to last the rest of my life and for my children. still siegel says he's being taxed to death and people like me who made all of the right decisions are being forced to bail out all the people who didn't. he also told me last night he wasn't trying to threaten his employees. he was just trying to educate them. he said, what does threaten your jobs is another four years of the same presidential administration. back to you, simon. i'm just having difficult with two facts that you just gave me, on the one hand he's saying i have enough money to give up my business and for me to live in the caribbean. we don't know that's a fact. -- with my family and my children, and they will be fine, and on the other hand he's complaining he's taxed to death. given that he's come back from bankruptcy so rapidly, that seems unlikely to me. he wasn't in bankruptcy but you know, you put your finge on it, simon, the reason this e-mail is so explosive is this is the man who built the largest home in america, 90,000 square feet, saying the government spends too much and that he is taxed too much. he also says this is really not about his own personal finances but really about his workers. now he also told me that he had to lay off 5,000 of his 12,000 workers. he only has 7,000 left and that was largely due to obama, not because he had $1 billion in debt on the company or that they overexpanded. so it's the irony that you pointed to that's made this so explosive, and the reason it's gone viral. clearly it's not about liquidity, if you take him at his word, robert, you talked to a lot of wealthy americans, is his view an outlier or is there some underlying widespread belief in what he's saying? there is a widespread belief and again, if you look at how well the 1%, the david siegels of the world are doing, it's baffling to many people why they are so upset, so angry at the current economy and at the current administration. for most of us they look like they're doing great. they captured 93% of the growth in 2009-2010, but they say it's not about their own personal finances. he said look, i'll be fine. i can go to the caribbean, i'll move back into versailles. it's really about the workers, it's the companies that we love to build and we just don't have an environment in which to do it, but again if you look at their own finances, it's hard to reconcile those two. it's very hard to call this finances, it's hard to reconcile the two. it's hard when he's gambling with his employees' jobs. that's all i have to say. if you're going to take a stand and put the employees' jobs on the line and not your own because, i'll be fine -- he thinks he's going to make them vote the other way. and 7,000 votes will -- hey, florida, 7,000 votes could be the difference. that could be the difference. i'm going to work out how many you can stick in a house that is 90,000 square feet. yeah, i've been in that house, and you know, i was there for about three ho still didn't see the whole thing. it was still under construction. did you get lost? i did, many times, it's an amazing, amazing piece of"
http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000121584


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Westgate Resorts CEO David Siegel On Employees: 'They're Like My Children, And I'm The Jewish Mother'



By Harry Bradford
Posted: 10/12/2012 2:33 pm EDT Updated: 10/12/2012 4:15 pm EDT

By now it’s pretty clear that infamous Westgate Resorts CEO David Siegel is not a fan of President Obama. What's not so clear is why, given that his company has had its best performance ever under Obama, according to his own estimates.

Siegel’s found himself in the spotlight this week after sending an email to his employees, telling them that their jobs will be at risk if Obama is reelected [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/09/david-siegel-email_n_1951801.html ]. He’s since defended the email repeatedly [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/11/david-siegel-email-intimidate_n_1957743.html ], clarifying that it wasn't meant as a threat to his workers and that he wasn't trying to “intimidate anybody [ http://www.clickorlando.com/news/David-Siegel-Anti-Obama-email-wasn-t-a-threat-to-employees/-/1637132/16929310/-/5jsbkyz/-/index.html ].”

But while Siegel has claimed that an Obama reelection would mean debilitating tax hikes, he’s also admitted amid his defense of the email that his business is currently thriving under Obama.

“The company is doing the best we’ve done in our history,” Siegel said in an interview with Businessweek [ http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-10-10/why-david-siegel-told-his-employees-to-vote-for-romney ]. The comment echoes a similar one he made on CNBC’s “Closing Bell with Maria Bartiromo [ http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000121675 ]," when told hosts “we’re very profitable [ http://www.nbcuniversal.presscentre.com/content/detail.aspx?ReleaseID=12974 ].”

Siegel claims that small business owners across the country have reached out to express their support for his anti-Obama stance but others say he -- and his company -- would be best off if he kept his mouth shut.

"Telling or forcefully suggesting how yr employees should vote is the exact way to create problems among your workers and reduce productivity,” Mavericks owner and entrepreneur Mark Cuban said in a tweet Thursday [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/12/mark-cuban-david-siegel_n_1961564.html ].

But maybe Cuban doesn’t understand the apparently unique relationship Siegel has with his workforce.

“We’re like a family," he was quoted as saying in Businessweek [ http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-10-10/why-david-siegel-told-his-employees-to-vote-for-romney ]. "They’re like my children, and I’m the Jewish mother telling them to eat their spinach and vote for Romney.”

Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/12/david-siegel-obama_n_1961778.html [with comments]