Harley-Davidson failed at 'Business 101' as 'elitist jerks' rule boardrooms, says former Levi's exec

"Elitist jerks and hypocrites" at Harley-Davidson, and other brands such as Bud Light, are responsible for the woke-inflicted meltdown marquee American companies have suffered in recent years, an entrepreneur in the trenches of the corporate culture wars tells Fox New Digital.

"It's Business 101. You don’t disrespect your core consumers and you certainly don’t alienate and abandon them in the search to grow and expand elsewhere," said Jennifer Sey, a former senior marketing executive for Levi Strauss & Co.

Harley-Davidson’s German-born CEO and board chairman, Jochen Zeitz, has been lambasted by long-time loyal customers for attempting to remake the motorcycle’s muscular American image, accused by critics of employing a progressive agenda that clashes with the values of its most devoted customers.

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"We are trying to take on traditional capitalism and trying to redefine it," Zeitz said while speaking to global leaders at a conference in Switzerland in 2020, the same year he took the helm of Harley.

Zeitz, in the same speech, compared himself to the Taliban to express his devotion to "sustainability."

Jennifer Sey, a former senior executive at Levi Strauss & Co., clashed with executives over COVID lockdowns in 2020. She launched XX-XY Athletics in March 2024. (XX-XY Athletics)

Simmering discontent among Harley-Davidson’s loyal customers exploded in open rebellion against the brand after Zeitz’s internal agenda was outed by corporate watchdog Robby Starbuck on X.

"They killed Harley. It breaks my heart," Vinny Terranova, the owner of Pappy’s Vintage Cycles in Sturgis, South Dakota, and former Harley-Davidson dealership owner, told Fox News Digital.

"It's ‘Business 101.’ You don’t disrespect your core consumers."

Sey, the former Levi’s executive, witnessed the corporate culture wars from the trenches of the boardroom battlefield. She was a C-suite celebrity in 2020, charged with managing, polishing and growing the iconic Levi’s brand. Founded by German immigrant Levi Strauss in San Francisco in 1853, Levi's jeans have enjoyed global prestige as a symbol of American culture and opportunity.

Jochen Zeitz, president, CEO and chairman of the board of Harley-Davidson, attends the start of trading of electric motorcycle spinoff Livewire on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., September 27, 2022.  REUTERS/Brendan McDermid (REUTERS/Brendan McDermid)

But then the "lifelong Democrat" was shaken out of her corporate comfort when she opposed the city’s, the state of California’s, and her own employer’s onerous responses to COVID-19. 

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"I was a leader in the community and I was just vilified for speaking out against school closings," Sey said. "I was demonized because I cared about keeping schools open. I mean, it became an unlivable place for me."

Sey was forced out after a 23-year career at Levi's in 2022.

"San Francisco is the most aggressively conformist place you can fathom," she said. "It is not inclusive. It is not logical. And it is not progressive."

"Canceled," she claims, by corporate America, she was unable to land an executive-level position that reflected her sterling credentials. 

Sey relocated to Colorado and launched XX-XY Athletics, a performance apparel company, in March. 

She's now a warrior against wokeism. The name of her company is itself an act of defiance against the notion that womanhood exists on a spectrum of sorts.

"The elites adopt all these crazy far-left positions to assuage their guilt about having tons of money and privilege."

"The message is that there is empirical truth. Biology is true," Sey said. "It’s very simple, actually. There is XX and there is XY. We can corrupt the truth with language all we want. But at the end of the day the truth is that sex is binary."

The corruption of long-held truths and the embrace of radical ideology that drove her out of Levi's, and has driven customers away from Harley-Davidson, Bud Light, and other revered American brands, is the product of many factors, she believes.  

"The elites adopt all these crazy far-left positions to assuage their guilt about having tons of money and privilege," she said. 

Jennifer Sey was the U.S. national champion in all-around gymnastics in 1986. She competed in the Goodwill Games in Moscow the same year.  (XX-XY Athletics/Jennifer Sey)

Corporate executives devote lip service to public education, for example, "but they all send their kids to $60,000-a-year private schools."

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"The other thing is that these companies are now populated by Gen Z employees from a woke education system and from woke universities who were raised in safe spaces and want you to know their pronouns," she added.

Executives fear running afoul of the surrounding mob, inciting their social-media outrage, and jeopardizing the wealth, privilege and perks they pretend to reject. 

"The inmates are running the asylum" in corporate America, said Sey.

A red white and blue Harley Davidson motorcycle in Chicago, Illinois (Photo by: Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) (Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Her career inside the "woke bubble" of high-powered corporate culture and current battles against it give Sey unique insight on Harley-Davidson’s recent problems. 

Harley CEO Zeitz rose to global prominence turning discount Puma sneakers into a global fashion brand, socialized with the rich and the famous, launched a sailing race team, opened an art museum in his name in South Africa and counted the likes of Richard Branson among his social circle. 

Critics charged he had little in common with Harley-Davidson customers and apparently did not understand the key to the global appeal of the motorcycle brand: it's American-ness.

Levi's has enjoyed the same global prestige.

Jennifer Sey founded XX-XY Athletics in March 2024. The message of the name of the brand "is that there is empirical truth. Biology is true," she said. (XX-XY Athletics)

"What people find valuable about these brands is that they represent the best of American values," Sey said. "They represented freedom, individualism, progress and democracy." 

Harley-Davidson, she believes, represented "rugged masculinity and individualism, living on your own terms."

Sey experienced the power of American brands while competing on the world stage in gymnastics at the Goodwill Games in Moscow in 1986. 

She bought 20 pairs of jeans at Macy's and brought them with her to trade with Soviet and other foreign athletes. Levi's classic 501 jeans could net up to $1,000 per pair on the Moscow black market in the 1980s, she said.

"Levi's jeans represent freedom and progress," she said.

The "progressive" politics of today are progress in name only, she said.

"What they call progressive is actually incredibly retrograde," she said. "It's pushed by elitist hypocrites. I can't even stand to be around them anymore."

Kerry J. Byrne is a lifestyle reporter with Fox News Digital.