With deceit and arrogance, Uber keeps finding new ways to shoot itself in the foot

The ride-hailing company with a glittering informal valuation of $70 billion shot itself in the foot on Saturday, public-image-wise, by apparently sending drivers to New York's Kennedy airport during a one-hour taxi drivers' strike staged to protest President Trump's immigrant and refugee ban. That action, in which Uber announced it would suspend "surge" charges on Kennedy airport trips during the strike, provoked thousands of Uber users to adopt the "#DeleteUber" hashtag on Twitter, signifying that they were removing the company's ride-ordering app from their smartphones. Hours later, Uber was backpedaling furiously, tweeting that the firm had not been trying to break the strike. Chief Executive Travis Kalanick subsequently announced a $3-million defense fund for Uber drivers caught in Trump's immigration net and issued a bland statement about Trump's executive order that stopped short of actually criticizing it. He merely observed that "allowing people from all around the world to come here and make America their home has largely been the U.S.'s policy since its founding."