Tech CEO Michael Lofthouse caught on video making racist comments
According to a Pew Research Center report, discrimination and racism have increased in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, particularly for Asians.
USA TODAY
A viral video of a man spouting expletives and racist comments toward an Asian-American family at a restaurant in Carmel Valley, California, has been identified by multiple publications as a San Francisco tech CEO.
Multiple publications identified the man in the video as Michael Lofthouse, CEO of Solid8, LLC, a San Francisco cloud computing services company founded in 2017.
Lofthouse’s LinkedIn account appears to have been deleted, his Twitter account suspended and his Facebook profile removed.
Solid8’s website says it provides “IT solutions designed to reduce cost and improve performance with Cloud Contact Center, Communication, SDWAN & CyberSecurity.” Lofthouse, however, is not listed as the company’s CEO.
Solid8 did not respond to USA TODAY’s request for comment.
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Jordan Chan and her family were celebrating her aunt’s birthday Saturday when one patron, Lofthouse, at a nearby table began harassing the family.
Chan began recording Lofthouse as he continued harassing her family at Bernardus restaurant in Carmel Valley, California.
The video starts with Lofthouse flipping off Chan after she asked him to repeat what he’d said previously. People at the table can be heard saying “you need to leave.”
After getting up, Lofthouse then says, “You f—— need to leave! You f—— Asian piece of s—!”
A server, in frame, then immediately yells at him, “No, you do not talk to our guests like that. Get out of here.”
In a statement to CBS San Francisco, which earlier reported the news, Sean Damery, vice president and general manager of Bernardus said: “This is an extremely unfortunate situation, however we are proud of our staff at Lucia in keeping with Bernardus Lodge’s core values; this incident was handled swiftly and the diner was escorted off property without further escalation.”
“We provide guests with a safe environment for lodging and dining, and extend our sincere apologies to the guests enjoying a birthday celebration on a holiday weekend,” Damery added.
In a statement submitted to ABC affiliate KGO-TV in San Francisco, Lofthouse apologized for the incident. “My behavior in the video is appalling,” reads the statement. “This was clearly a moment where I lost control and made incredibly hurtful and divisive comments.”
With over 400,000 views already, the backlash prompted viewers to voice their thoughts on the matter. However, some have been reaching out to the wrong Solid8 company in Europe.
“We are currently receiving huge amounts of emails, calls and messages from people accusing us of having a CEO that is racist. This is a case of mistaken identity and we are in no way associated with the business in question,” Emma Jones, managing director and owner of Solid8 Consulting said.
Contributing: Ayrton Ostly of the Salinas Californian.
Follow Josh Rivera on Twitter: @Josh1Rivera.
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