West
Harley-Davidson 'woke' European CEO created culture clash with US biker 'brotherhood,' say critics
Harley-Davidson’s CEO Jochen Zeitz was Germany’s fresh-faced corporate wunderkind when he took over Puma in the 1990s.
Lately, he’s faced questions and concern from bikers and woke-exhausted consumers in the U.S.
Zeitz is seen as a proponent of far-left ideology who, some critics say, has tarnished the legendary all-American Harley-Davidson brand since taking it over in 2020.
HARLEY-DAVIDSON BOARD OF DIRECTORS SILENT ON FUTURE, FATE OF ‘WOKE’ CEO AND CHAIRMAN
“They lost their human touch. That’s the best way to put it,” longtime Harley-Davidson biker “Horseshoe” Johnny Hennings told Fox News Digital at the end of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota last week.
“Harley was like a brotherhood. … Now it’s just a ghost.”
Jochen Zeitz, chief executive officer of Puma AG, is shown speaking at the International Herald Tribune’s Techno Luxury conference in Berlin on Nov. 17, 2009. (Michele Tantussi/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
But Zeitz’s supporters see it another way.
They say claims of Harley’s demise are vastly overstated by aging riders.
The Milwaukee-based motorcycle maker reported $5.4 billion in revenue in 2019, part of a decade-long downward trend. Revenue climbed to $5.8 billion last year, the third straight year of growth under the German-born CEO.
HARLEY-DAVIDSON SLAMS BRAKES ON ‘WOKE’ POLICIES AFTER SPARKING BIKER AND SOCIAL-MEDIA OUTRAGE
“He’s a smart dude and since he’s taken over, Harley has made more money for its investors,” the general manager at a Texas dealership told Fox News Digital.
“It’s simple as that.”
“He’s just all about being a new world order globalist.”
Harley’s iconic image, however, has been under the spotlight amid what appears to be a clash of cultures.
Old-time U.S. riders who fueled and embraced Harley-Davidson’s muscular image of rugged, flag-waving American independence are pitted against the European globetrotter with famous friends and left-leaning aims who today heads the brand.
Participants in the Hamburg Harley Days Parade ride over the Köhlbrand Bridge in Hamburg, Germany, on June 30. (Georg Wendt/picture alliance/Getty Images)
“He’s just all about being a new world order globalist,” Vinny Terranova, the owner of Pappy’s Vintage Cycles in Sturgis, South Dakota, told Fox News Digital.
“He brought in bean counters and minions from Europe and they don’t care where Harley came from or the history of it. There’s no more service, no more customer interaction.”
HARLEY-DAVIDSON CEO COMPARES HIMSELF TO ‘TALIBAN’ IN EFFORT TO REMAKE MOTORCYCLE BRAND
Fox News Digital reached out to Harley-Davidson, Zeitz and members of the company’s board of directors for comment.
The unhappiness with Harley-Davidson’s drift away from core consumers came to a head in recent weeks when Zeitz’s “woke” agenda became the center of social media and consumer outrage.
Festival participants are shown on their Harley-Davidson bikes at the big ride in Saxony, Dresden, Germany, in July 2023. (Matthias Rietschel/picture alliance/Getty Images)
“We are trying to take on traditional capitalism and trying to redefine it,” Zeitz said at a 2020 conference in Switzerland just as he was gripping the handles of Harley-Davidson.
The video was brought to daylight last week by anti-woke social-media warrior Robby Starbuck.
Zeitz also added, in a stunning reference to terrorism, that he was “the sustainable Taliban.”
Salma Hayek and Jochen Zeitz, the chair and CEO of Puma, attend the unveiling of the Puma Ocean Racing Boat on May 12, 2008, at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art. (Gail Oskin/WireImage)
Harley-Davidson changed amid public outrage earlier this week, announcing that it was scaling back some of its more controversial programs and refocusing on core consumers.
HARLEY-DAVIDSON ‘USED’ BIKERS BEFORE ‘WOKE’ CONTROVERSY, FORMER OUTLAW RIDER CLAIM
All of this has fueled questions about the man behind the plan.
Prior successes
Sparkling tributes to Zeitz in various media outlets describe his success at Puma and jaunts across the playgrounds of the rich and famous.
“Jochen Zeitz saved Puma. Now he’s trying to fix global business,” reads the celebratory headline of a Wired magazine tribute in 2018.
Cindy Crawford sits on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle on the set of a Pepsi commercial wearing a black leather jacket surrounded by actors dressed as police officers in 1992 in Los Angeles. (Roxanne McCann)
Zeitz launched Puma Ocean Racing, with Salma Hayek christening the first boat in Boston, in 2008; founded The B Team with Richard Branson, based in London and New York City, in 2013, with a mission to define business by social agenda; and opened the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art in South Africa in 2017.
While his professional career has been publicly celebrated, Zeitz’s family history is largely unknown.
Little is publicly known about the CEO’s family.
He was raised in Heidelberg, Germany, to parents in the medical profession, according to rare bits of information from profiles, including in Women’s Wear Daily and other publications, found online. Little else is publicly known about his family.
For more Lifestyle articles, visit foxnews.com/lifestyle
A search of records and archives in the U.S. and Germany found no mention of family history.
What is known is that he was just 30 when he took the reins of Puma in 1993, the youngest CEO of a publicly traded company in Germany’s history, according to several reports.
Puma Ocean Racing powered by BERG, skippered by Ken Read from the USA, is followed by a spectator fleet into Itajai in the final miles of leg 5 from Auckland, New Zealand, to Itajai, Brazil, during the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12 on April 6, 2012. (Paul Todd/Volvo Ocean Race via Getty Images)
He turned the discount sneaker brand into a high-priced fashion statement, and cemented his status in global couture as a board member of Kering, the French parent company of luxury brands Bottega Veneta, Gucci, Puma and Saint Laurent, among others.
Regardless of mystery or history, Zeitz has rubbed some of Harley’s most loyal consumers the wrong way in recent years.
Jochen Zeitz, CEO of Puma, in Nuremberg, Germany, in 2008. (Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)
“Harley-Davidson was our God and we were its disciples,” Marc Wilson of Colorado, a longtime Harley-Davidson rider who worked for one of its dealerships for 21 years, told Fox News Digital.
“Then that God we worshiped stabbed us in the back,” he said — a reference to both the company’s wokeness in recent years and the way some customers feel the company has treated them.
Read the full article from Here
San Francisco, CA
Multiple people lose eyes, hands in illegal fireworks-related injuries in San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — San Francisco emergency departments and first responders experienced a sharp increase in serious injuries over the Fourth of July weekend, with illegal fireworks and electric scooter crashes contributing to some of the busiest days in recent years.
At Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, medical teams treated a wave of patients suffering severe trauma. In one incident, bystanders rushed to help a person who was bleeding heavily after a hand injury. A 911 dispatcher described the call as “Extreme Trauma. Hand injury.”
Dr. Christopher Colwell, chief of emergency medicine at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, said surgeons worked to treat patients with devastating injuries.
“We are able to do a lot with and sometimes save the function of the hand and eye. Unfortunately, there are injuries that exist every year where we are not able to do that even with the expertise that we have,” Colwell said.
MORE: SF police in riot gear crack down on 4th of July illegal fireworks shows: ‘It was crazy’
According to Dr. Colwell, four people lost eyes, five lost hands and at least 15 people suffered serious injuries related to electric scooters over the weekend.
“We saw a lot of electric scooter accidents. And I think part of it was that their traffic was such that that was a more efficient way of getting around town. But we also learned very clearly that the combination of electric scooters and how fast you can go in San Francisco, particularly going downhill along with not wearing a helmet and adding alcohol on board, is a really bad combination,” Colwell said.
ABC7’s data team reviewed San Francisco EMT data and found that medical incidents on July 4 and July 5 were about double the number reported during the same period in 2025.
Lt. Mariano Elias of the San Francisco Fire Department said emergency crews handled significantly more calls than usual.
“We had almost 200 more calls than we normally have so we had roughly 576 calls in a 24-hour period,” Elias said.
MORE: Over 400 people arrested during chaos at Newport Beach July 4th celebrations, police say
Illegal fireworks activity also sparked fires across the city. Firefighters responded to Telegraph Hill, where crews quickly contained a blaze.
“We did have two house fires that night on the 4th of July, due to fireworks activities,” Elias said.
City officials estimated that more than 100,000 people were in San Francisco to watch Fourth of July fireworks, creating traffic congestion that complicated ambulance response efforts.
“All the gridlock between, people coming and going from, the Golden Gate Bridge. The city was very impacted on the streets. So that was an issue. The one particular ambulance did, involve themselves in an accident. So, someone hit the ambulance. So that patient had to be transported and moved to a different ambulance,” Elias said.
First responders warned that illegal fireworks activity typically continues for days after the Fourth of July and urged the public not to take unnecessary risks.
Copyright © 2026 KGO-TV. All Rights Reserved.
DENVER (KKTV) – Colorado firefighters prevented a fire from spreading to a home in Denver late Monday afternoon after it fully engulfed a power pole and destroyed most of a detached garage.
Adams County Fire Rescue said crews responded to a house fire in the 8300 block of Nueva Vista Drive, near Coronado Hills Elementary School, around 5 p.m.
Firefighters said when crews arrived, they saw heavy smoke from behind the home in a detached garage, as well as a fully engulfed power pole.
The incident was soon upgraded to a second-alarm fire, firefighters said.
The fire destroyed most of the detached garage, part of a shed as well as nearby fences and vehicles, firefighters said. The fire did not spread to the actual home.
The residents of the home had evacuated the area when firefighters arrived, and crews helped evacuate the four surrounding homes, firefighters said.
Firefighters said Xcel Energy crews were called to shut off the power lines in the area.
Firefighters said there were no injuries.
The cause of the fire is under investigation as of Tuesday morning.
Copyright 2026 KKTV. All rights reserved.
Thanks to Susan for the photo. She called to tell us about a dog stuck on the rocks off Beach Drive near Harbor West (the condos on pilings), and a crowd gathering to figure out how to rescue it from the rising tide. We were away from the desk at the time but after returning a little while later, we heard the situation mentioned on police radio, with word the dog had been rescued, so we didn’t head that way. Then late tonight Susan sent photos, explaining that the dog apparently is known to swim to those rocks and back, but for some reason got stuck this time, “until a paddle boarder and kayaker paddled out to it to coax it off the rocks and back to the shore.”
-
San Francisco, CA8 minutes agoMultiple people lose eyes, hands in illegal fireworks-related injuries in San Francisco
-
Dallas, TX11 minutes agoTexas took this Dallas couple’s newborn baby for 3 weeks. A judge says their rights were violated
-
Miami, FL16 minutes agoSouth Florida foundation empowering thousands of young girls through education, mentorship, community support
-
Boston, MA23 minutes agoWhere to watch Boston Red Sox vs Chicago White Sox: TV channel, start time, streaming for July 7
-
Denver, CO26 minutes agoHouse fire in Denver fully engulfs power pole, detached garage mostly destroyed
-
Seattle, WA26 minutes agoWEST SEATTLE SCENE: Stranded dog’s rocky rescue
-
Milwaukee, WI41 minutes agoCollege wasn’t on his radar. This nonprofit helped him — and hundreds more
-
Atlanta, GA46 minutes agoAtlanta man killed in SE Georgia shooting, GBI investigating
