Exclusive — Michael Seifert: Public Square Is the ‘Starting Point’ to Countering ESG, DEI 

Public Square CEO Michael Seifert told Breitbart News that his company is the “starting point” to countering the corporate push for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies.

Seifert explained to Breitbart News Saturday host Matthew Boyle that Public Square is “the nation’s largest marketplace of businesses that have refused to go woke.” Seifert’s platform boasts over 55,000 different businesses and a massive one million consumer users in the company’s first year in business.

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“These are businesses that are pro life, pro family, pro freedom – they love the country and the Constitution and the values that it protects,” he explained.

Seifert mentioned that once calls to boycott Bud Light began following the company’s partnership with a transgender activist, searches for beer increased by 800 percent on his platform.

“And then if you’re a business, you also head to public sq.com, you join for free, you see our value statement, you agree to respect those values, meaning you’re not going to spend time, money, or resource antagonistically against those values,” Seifert said. “And this helps consumers know with an assurance they’re not spending their money on companies that hate our country, and the values that have made it special.”

Seifert mentioned that Public Square does not share any personal user data and that it is free for consumers to create an account.

“It’s free. We’re never gonna ask you for money. And we won’t share your personal data. All of that is is yours and yours personally. You have the ability then to browse on our featured page where you can see kind of some of the new hot up and coming businesses that are on the platform. You can actually use the shop local options so that you can see a map of businesses around you and your local community,” he explained.

Looking forward, Public Square has plans to develop into a “fully integrated e-commerce” store that would compete with Jeff Bezos’ Amazon. The company will also go public on the New York Stock Exchange this summer, Seifert announced.

Not only do consumers benefit from the platform, but businesses have also reported increased sales since signing up to become a vendor on Public Square.

“And we have testimonies that roll in, hundreds every single day, of businesses then in the process saying, ‘Our profits are going through the roof because we joined this platform with a free profile.’ And there’s trust implemented in these transactions,” Seifert said.

Seifter mentioned that Public Square is the start of a “parallel economy ecosystem” to rival the corporate push for ESG and DEI.

“So there’s really this cool parallel economy ecosystem that’s been created. And it all starts with consumer spending. We hate ESG, we hate Dei, we talk about these policies all the time in the news. But the only way that we are going to topple those corrupt philosophies that are destroying our economy is by shifting consumer spending. And so we’re offering the easiest directory out there to go and do that as your starting point,” Seifert told Boyle.

Seifert also highlighted the company’s $5,000 baby bonus program to rival the $4,000 companies like Amazon are reportedly giving to employees who must travel out of state to get an abortion.

“Hundreds of companies like Airbnb, Lululemon, Amazon, Walmart, all these companies saying we are going to fund our employees’ abortions. And so when I saw that, you know, we’ve just been really dismayed and frustrated watching companies turn against the family unit,” Seifert said.

“And we wanted to sing an opposite tune. So what we decided to do is, we said, let’s go out there. And let’s while these other companies are doing $4,500, for an abortion, let’s give $5,000 bonuses after tax to our employees, we’re going to set this policy and so we’re nearing 100 employees full time right now,” Seifert said. “So we said, let’s go ahead and set this policy in stone as we continue to grow rapidly into the future. And let’s make sure our employees know that we celebrate the expansion of their family, so $5,000 for any employee, or their spouse, that works to have a baby.”

The $5,000 baby bonus program also applies to Public Square employees adopting children.

“So when you want to go through the process of beginning the adoption, we’ll actually contribute $5,000 to that process. And by the way, this is not limited to one child. So if people have twins, or if they have multiple babies while they’re on staff with us, we want to make sure that every single time they know that there’s this extra little gift that hopefully is at least a small sign of saying we love the family unit. We believe it needs to grow strong families, make a strong nation, and ultimately at the end of the day, our company is only as strong as the families that have built it,” Seifert told Boyle.

Seifert said the growth of Public Square is a “sign of the nation’s hunger for this solution.”

“I think the markets, especially red America, that loves the country, and the Constitution and the values that it protects, we’re really tired of feeling lectured  [to]by companies that hate us. And our growth is purely a sign of that frustration, but also a hope for a solution,” Seifert noted.

He said that people would not sign up for the platform “Unless, they felt like we were actually going to provide some solution to them,” then added, “They wouldn’t keep coming back, they wouldn’t shop from these businesses unless they still felt hope for the future.”

Seifert noted that, when adding up all the counties that voted for Trump in 2020, they have a collectively 30 percent share of American GDP, making it the “third largest economy in the world.”

“When you look at election data from the 2020 election. If you look at 2020, you look at the counties that voted for Trump, that’s 30% of American GDP, put that up in, in quantitative form, and that’s $7 trillion. So Red America, if you just use election data, is a $7 trillion GDP economy, that puts it third in the world, just behind China and just ahead of Japan,” Seifert explained.

Breitbart News Saturday airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Eastern.

Jordan Dixon-Hamilton is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jdixonhamilton@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter.