Disgraced Tech CEO Quits Amid Blowback From Racist Rant: Reports

LOS GATOS, CA — Disgraced Silicon Valley tech CEO Michael Lofthouse has resigned amid fallout from his racist rant at a Monterey County restaurant captured on a video that has gone viral, KGO-TV reports.

Lofthouse stepped down from his role at Solid8, a Los Gatos-based information technology company according to a San Francisco Chronicle report.

Lofthouse’s profanity-laced racist meltdown was directed towards a family of Asian descent at an upscale Carmel restaurant and captured on video by Jordan Chan. Chan’s family was celebrating an aunt’s birthday at Lucia restaurant at the Bernardus Lodge and Spa in Carmel Valley July 4, The Associated Press reports.

The video has been viewed over a million times on Instagram.

Lofthouse is seen sitting alone at the start of the video, smiling smugly as he flashes his middle finger as someone in the background is heard saying “Say that again … Oh, now you’re shy?”

Lofthouse then points at the family as says “Trump’s gonna f**k you, you f**kers need to leave.”

After someone is the background is heard telling him “you need to leave,” Lofthouse says as he puts on his jacket “you need to leave, you f******g Asian piece of s**t.”

“Oh my God,” a person is heard in the background gasping.

“Get out of here,” the waitress, identified by KGO as Gennica Cochran tells him.

“Yeah I’m out, I already put my f***ing money down,” Lofthouse said.

“Get out of here, get out,” the waitress is heard admonishing Lofthouse. “You are not allowed here ever again.”

Lofthouse issued an apology for the incident in a statement to KGO-TV.

“This was clearly a moment where I lost control and made incredibly hurtful and divisive comments. I would like to deeply apologize to the Chan family,” Lofthouse said. “I can only imagine the stress and pain they feel. I was taught to respect people of all races, and I will take the time to reflect on my actions and work to better understand the inequality that so many of those around me face every day.”

But a family member who was on the receiving end of Lofthouse’s diatribe isn’t buying it.

“He’s just saving face. I think he really meant what he said and what he did,” Raymond Orosa told KGO-TV.

“I don’t believe his words because his actions speak louder than the words he’s saying.”

The incident is among the latest in a surge of cases of abuse against persons of Asian descent amid the coronavirus crisis.

President Trump has propagated tensions amid the pandemic with repeated use of racist anti-Asian rhetoric, using terms such as the “China virus,” and “Kung flu,” to describe the coronavirus.

As of July 1 there were 2,210 reported incidents of racial discrimination against Asian Americans in the United States and 832 in California since the beginning of the pandemic Axios reports, citing datafrom the group, Stop Asian American Pacific Islander Hate.

Several incidents have occurred in the Bay Area.

A woman was spat on in broad daylight in San Francisco in March, multiple South Bay Asian-owned business were vandalized in April, and a rash Anti-Asian graffiti was found in a San Mateo neighborhood in May.

Charissa Cheah, a University of Maryland Baltimore County psychology professor who leading a study researching discrimination against Chinese Americans amid the coronavirus crisis, told The Washington Post that Trump’s rhetoric is a factor in the surge of racist-inspired incidents.

“[Trump is] essentially throwing his American citizens or residents of Chinese and Asian descent ‘under the bus’ by ignoring the consequences of the language he uses,” Cheah told The Post. “He’s fueling these anti-Chinese sentiments among Americans … not caring that the people who will truly suffer the most are Chinese Americans and other Asian Americans, his citizens whom he’s supposed to protect.”

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