What are some lesser known (so no Walmart, Nestle, Amazon etc) shitty, ethically bankrupt, evil companies?
What are some lesser known (so no Walmart, Nestle, Amazon etc) shitty, ethically bankrupt, evil companies?
Sinclair group in the US, bought up basically every local news station and began inserting propaganda into scripts as stories. Highly insidious because the older population generally trusted their local news anchors more than the national outlets.
GEO group, one of the largest private prison corporations that also manages ice detention facilities and many mental institutions, not sure I need to say much more.
riot games settles for 100 million dollars after sexually harassing its own employees.
Male employees (developers, I think) engaged in drunken "panty raids" where they would crowd into a woman's cubicle and take things from her while she worked.
Riot games chose to pay these women to go away, rather than fix the problem.
They make League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics. I will never spend another dollar on their products.
Red Bull, they are nazis and spread fake news about conspiracy theories on their own TV network in Austria. Source
Ones I haven't seen mentioned here yet:
Honeywell is a major millitary contractor.
Meijer, Hanes, Circle K, Jimmy Johns, Thermos, Thortons, Hyvee, Milwaukee, Ryobi, Conair, AAA, Yamaha, Dixie, Roku, New Balance, Sparkle, Saucony, Hoka, Sport Clips, and Lowes - donate almost exclusively to Republicans
Tripplite (bought by Eaton) - Barre Seid donated 1.6 billion to a dark money conservative group.
It's a minefield out there.
Anduril, Palmer Luckey's foray into military hardware and an ever-present surveillance state. Some of the first hardware they rolled out were surveillance towers for the US border patrol.
So Mark Zuckerberg officially isn't the only giant pile of shit connected to Oculus, the original owner is a fucking pile of shit, too.
Trader Joe's is also thought of by many people as "progressive" and a "good company." Go learn about the conditions in their warehouses and you'll find out that's not true at all. I had a friend who worked TJ's warehouse in Lacey, WA and all he had was fucking horror stories and how the warehouse was owned and run by MAGA fucks.
EDIT: Found the article my friend was excited about coming out that didn't seem to get any MSM traction.
Inside ‘Teflon Joe’s’: Why your favorite grocery store is not what you think
How Trader Joe’s remains a beloved brand despite record product recalls, safety violations, worker misconduct complaints, and an environmental record that belies its reputation.
So yeah fuck Trader Joe's.
Oh yeah and the CEO of Protonmail revealed himself to be a Trump supporter.
So fuck Protonmail.
The Brave browser CEO recently went on an hinged rant on that orange site about "lefties," "glowies," and George Soros. He also has a long history of being anti-gay, which is why he lost his job at Firefox, and Brave itself has a shady history with stuff like injecting affiliate codes into URLs.
So fuck Brave.
Menards. They have a history of dumping waste illegally and then daring the DNR to sue them. One example:
REI. Just another corporation in a "Good Guy" costume. https://www.ourrei.com/2025-rei-board-elections
Union busting, problematic supply chains, pulling PPE from staff. Hell, officially supporting Trump’s pick for Secretary of the Interior because I guess they can't help themselves.
Someone needs to create a website called boycotteverything.com or something, and list off every company to boycott because of something heinous they did.
But have a score out of 10; some are worse than others.
And link to sources / fact checks.
Samuel Smith Old Brewery is probably the shittiest company in the world. Or more specifically its owner, Humphrey Smith, is a full on twat. And, unlike most companies, this brewery and all associated businesses are unlimited companies, meaning that Humphrey bears full legal responsibility for everything his companies do.
Who's Humphrey Smith? He's an ultra rich Englishman (but no one knows his wealth size as all of his businesses are privately owned unlimited companies, so he doesn't have to file financial reports apart from tax related stuff), he owns a pretty large part of Tadcaster town, hundreds of pubs across UK and he doesn't give a shit about his employees, customers or people living in Tadcaster.
He has extremely strict rules for his pubs, which include no kids, no mobile phones, no TVs, etc. He regularly tours his pubs, kicks out people found using mobile phones and then fires the whole pub staff on the spot. He also blocked construction of a new bridge in Tadcaster when old one fell apart, because fuck locals.
Knauf. They produce drywall boards, among other building materials. You probably dwell a home where these products are built in. Excerpt from linked Wikipedia article:
In 2022, after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, Yale University published a list of companies that chose to remain active in Russia. According to this report, over 600 companies have withdrawn from Russia — but some remain. Knauf is still operating across 14 sites in Russia but has claimed to have suspended new investments.[5].
In November 2023 Ukraine listed Knauf as an International Sponsor of War for promoting mobilisation in Russia by sending its employees to the war against Ukraine.[6].
According to German public-service broadcaster ARD, Knauf has been active in collaborating with the Russian military in its construction efforts in the Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.[7][8]Another source (German), 2024 states, that due to investigation of a news outlet, they allegedly withdrew their actions.
Withdrawal in response to ARD investigation?
Only recently, the plaster company from Lower Franconia hit the headlines because of its activities in Russia: Research by the ARD magazine “Monitor” suggested that Knauf had violated EU sanctions against Russia. Whether the withdrawal from Russia is connected to the allegations made was neither confirmed nor denied by the company to BR24 today and a press spokeswoman did not wish to comment on the matter in response to a written request.They probably wanted to have a foot in the door when it comes to rebuilding, when the war will be over finally.
Another, probably more known company is Claas, a manufacturer of farming equipment like combine harvesters and such. Another source (German), 2023 claims
The company condemns Russia's attack on Ukraine, said Mohr. Nevertheless, Claas cannot and does not want to withdraw from one of the world's most important agricultural regions. “Both countries are enormously important for feeding the world's population. That's why farming must continue there,” Mohr told the SZ newspaper, adding that harvesting machines were essential for this.
DuPont. Here's just a little tidbit:
Between 2007 and 2014 there were 34 accidents resulting in toxic releases at DuPont plants across the U.S., with a total of eight fatalities.[93] Four employees died of suffocation in a Houston, Texas, accident involving leakage of nearly 24,000 pounds (11,000 kg) of methyl mercaptan.[94] As a result, the company became the largest of the 450 businesses placed into the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's "severe violator program" in July 2015.
In Anniston, Alabama, plaintiffs in a 2002 lawsuit provided documentation showing that the local Monsanto factory knowingly discharged both mercury and PCB-laden waste into local creeks for over 40 years.[220] In 1969 Monsanto dumped 45 tons of PCBs into Snow Creek, a feeder for Choccolocco Creek, which supplies much of the area's drinking water, and buried millions of pounds of PCB in open-pit landfills located on hillsides above the plant and surrounding neighborhoods.
These are the kind of companies that inspired the cartoon villains of the 1980s that just dump pollution because.
Stickermule and uline
https://slate.com/business/2024/07/sticker-mule-ceos-pro-trump-maga-email-surprised-employees.html
After stickermule went full magat the owner started to dox people who left negative reviews or spoke out against them.
https://www.propublica.org/article/uline-uihlein-election-denial
A previously unreported boom in profits for the shipping supply giant Uline has provided the funds for a deeply conservative Midwestern family to bankroll anti-democracy causes around the country.
Herbalife
GNC. The vitamin stores. They knowingly sell expired merchandise and withhold commissions from their employees.
Vale do Rio Verde, two of their (mining waste) dams broke in Brazil, killing thousands and permanently damaging the ecosystem of a entire river
KPMG, Deloitte and Mc Kinsey, for reasons that include at times being both financial auditor and bookkeeping at the same time, and consultancy meaning reducing headcount no matter the cost.
I don't really know all that much about it honestly but all I've heard of them, is that they get the smartest people to do the worst thing that they can get away with.
Any physical therapy/rehab centers under Select Medical. I worked in one of their regional offices processing insurance claims and was exposed to the grossest type of capitalism. Profit through healthcare.
I did my best to make claims take an insanely long time to fully process so the patients weren't hit with their absurd bills right after they just got done with major medical issues. I kept one guy's outrageous bill in limbo the entire 9 months I worked there. He was a local to my area and I knew by the info in the system that he could not afford those bills. I made sure he didn't even see the bills the whole time I was at that job.
I had my ankle reconstructed a couple of years ago and I knew the bills were gonna be crazy. It took 4 months for me to get them and by that time I was already back to work. I like to think that someone was keeping my bills in limbo while I got back on my feet. I paid off the bills a little then lost track of it all and then decided that I'm just not paying medical shit unless I am forced to pay on the spot.
Is that you, Luigi?
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“Mormons, Inc.”
For the big makers of pseudo-science based bullshit medicine, see Weleda (naturopathy, anthroposophy) and Boiron (homeopathy).
If the company you work for is bought by Alpine Investments, get a lawyer. Especially if you're a woman or expect severance when they ditch you.
Red Ventures. They buy up web properties, fire everyone, and turn them into ai-generated click farms. For example, C|Net. They steal from their employees too.
Palantir is pretty core to the Surveillance Society in several supposedly Democratic countries. More in general just about all companies in that space such as the NSO Group makers of the Pegasus software for remote hacking of smartphones are invariably unethical
Similarly the whole business of Investment Banking is pretty unethical, and that definitely includes most Hedge Funds, the latter never being household names.
Pharmaceutical company Bayer. Sold HIV infected blood to poorer countries because they didn’t want to lose the investment they had in the blood.
Basically the blood was tested, found out it was HIV contaminated, went to a part of the world where they didn’t test as well. Messed with the results of the tests, and infected thousands of people with it, and eventually AIDS. All because the financial loss they would have taken from destroying the blood was considered too much.
Prenda law. A legal outfit that would seed porn and then sue downloaders for copyright violations. The idea being that people would settle to avoid being publicly humiliated by their porn viewing habits.
Granicus
Unknown to most, but they maintain a large number of local, state, and all the way up to Federal US public websites. They have quickly relocated their entire US based team outside of sales to underdeveloped countries over the last year for a very specific reason... And also unbeknownst to most of their clients.
Last year they brought in MS and Amazon CEO brains that have been turning things upside down for a quick flip ever since. These type of people need to BURN.
I think the question already contains a sort of ideological trap: it assumes that a specific company can be uniquely evil, as if morality were some trait that varies between company to company.
I'm sure everyone's heard this before:
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism.
It's not just a slogan. It gives us insight into the very structure of capitalism. That doesn't mean every individual act is equally bad, but the system demands a sort of baseline complicity.
CEOs and executives are legally required to maximize shareholder profits. Not just encouraged— legally obligated. So when Coca-Cola, for example, hires paramilitary death squads to kill labor leaders in Colombia, it's not because it is uniquely monstrous. Replace Coca-Cola with Pepsi, or Nestle, or Amazon, or Raytheon.. whatever. The logic of the system would produce the same result. If I gave the same chess position to 30 different Grandmasters.. if there is a best move they will all see it and choose that best move.
Think of an ant colony. An ant colony doesn't decide to be cruel; it expands, consumes, protects its territory, destroys threats. Is it evil when some colony wipes out another for resources? A colony committing what we could term ant genocide? No it's not. The colony is simply acting in its nature. Much like a slime mold would expand in a radius looking for food in a petri dish.
Large corporations are like ant colonies. Complex emergent behavior resulting from a large number of individual units acting by a set of rules. The intelligence or perspective of the individual does not actually matter for the organism as a whole. As long as the individual units follow a set of rules it creates a sort of "hive-mind" pseudo-intelligence that acts in its own interests and has an almost Darwinist natural selection process.
So this is all to say that I reject the question. I don't believe in uniquely evil companies. The horror is precisely that they're all, in a sense, innocent. They act not out of hatred or sadism or cruelty, but because the system itself has carved out the pathways where the ball inevitably rolls down the hill following the path of least resistance.
I worked for an investment firm that had about 75 employees, but managed $35 billion in assets. There are a lot of those. Their investments tended to be a lot of the companies ruining the world, ranging from the privatized ambulance companies to the privatized hospice care companies to the emerging-market banks, etc...etc... And that's just one "small" investment firm.
By far all of the US MIC companies.
All restaurants
Bank of New York Melon