Swedish VPN vendor Mullvad is facing a backlash from some customers after co-founder Daniel Berntsson personally donated SEK 5 million (£385,000, $519,000) to the controversial populist Örebropartiet, which is running in Sweden’s national elections for the first time.
Berntsson has this week published a blog post explaining the donation, alongside posts titled “Immigration,” “Political individualism,” and “Moral individualism.” Before that, he had not posted since 2019.
The flurry of posts follows weeks of customer criticism over the donation – for example, Finnish blog Moonwriting’s post “I’m done with Mullvad.” Another blog, Unutterable, is more direct: “Mullvad funding the far-right and the problem with tech company ownership.” The Hacker News discussion thread about the donations has reached a remarkable 1,784 comments so far.
Mullvad was co-founded and is still jointly owned and run by two CEOs, Berntsson and Fredrik Strömberg. Its name, as reflected in the company’s logo, is Swedish for “mole.” It also offers the Mullvad Browser, a privacy-enhanced fork of Firefox ESR co-developed with the Tor Project. Swedish socialist newspaper Flamman (“The Flame”) revealed the donation in its story “High-profile techie gives millions to the Örebro Party.”
In a post on X, the company said it was devoted to freedom of speech and tolerance, saying: “It should be obvious that Daniel’s private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad’s values or mission, in the same way that someone’s opinions on animal rights, taxes or public healthcare policy isn’t.”
What is “the company”?
I’m not blaming the employees. I’m blaming the self-selected face, the guy who subscribes to the idea that his success and the company’s success are intertwined.
The company is the employees, yes, including the CEOs. Their collective actions are the actions of Mullvad.
Whilst the donation does reflect well on the company, there’s a lot more to the company that just one half of the leadership. I think people are right to keep a distinction between the two. “Mullvad” had no control of whether this donation was made or not, just as they have no control over any other employee making a political donation.
Should they consider if the CEOs public action have brought the company disrepute and fire him? Possibly, but I think it would be likely that such a decision could be challenged as a persons political views are not grounds for dismissal.