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. 

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"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. 

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"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."

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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.

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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.

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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. 

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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.

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"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.