Last week it was reported that for the first time ever, ride-hailing service Lyft had managed to surpass Uber in terms of app downloads. This is because of an ongoing #DeleteUber campaign that was created in response to Uber seemingly trying to profit from a protest staged against US President Donald Trump’s travel ban last week.
While the hashtag and campaign has been trending, we’re sure the question everyone is curious about is exactly how many people have deleted their Uber accounts? It’s one thing to stop using the service, but another thing to delete an account entirely. According to a report from The New York Times (via The Verge), it seems that 200,000 accounts have since been deleted.
Uber has yet to confirm those figures so take it with a grain of salt for now, but this isn’t the first time that companies have received backlash over their apparent support of Trump. Recently it was reported that there have been several Tesla owners who have cancelled their orders after discovering that the company’s CEO Elon Musk would continue to serve on Trump’s advisory groups, despite that prior to the election, Musk had stated that he believed that Trump was not the right person to be in the White House.
While it seems unlikely that this #DeleteUber campaign will be the death of the company, 200,000 is no small amount and we’re sure that Uber and its drivers are definitely feeling the pinch.