Almost all top U.S. companies had board diversity rules. Now most are gone

In all, 61 S&P 100 companies have dumped explicit diversity criteria for future board members since 2023, according to an ESGAUGE analysis of filings and governance documents for Bloomberg News. Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Starbucks Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co. have all eliminated diversity provisions for directors in the last three years. Starbucks and Wells Fargo also dropped diversity criteria for new directors. AMD has scrapped its pledge to “include qualified female and racially/ethnically diverse candidates” in its CEO pool, though it still has diversity criteria for board directors. Uber and Capital One are also among the more than 30 companies that still have diversity criteria for directors, the data show.