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Some Mullvad VPN customers tunnel for exit after co-founder donates millions to populist party
(www.theregister.com)
this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2026
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I'm not sure what they mean by this. Plenty of corporations do make animal rights, taxes, public healthcare, etc. an important part of their values and mission. Why would it be obvious that they're not?
Besides, we do want Nazis and fascists to be pariahs. Putting pressure on Mullvad not to associate is a good thing.
Specially in Nordics. Social corporate responsibility is a very long tradition in Nordics, specially with due to stuff like co-operative customer, producer or worker owned companies, state enterprises and so on.
Including leadership teams behavior. Companies do get flack for what kind of persons they hire as leadership, since it is (pretty reasonably) assumed their mindset and worldview affects their conduct while leading the company.
Plus not only is he leader, he is owner so again money to company's pocket is in the end money to his pocket.
One can't claim "we are responsible company, while having opposite kind of CEO/leader". It is his private matter he has these opinions, what isn't private is him being company leader. Company doesn't want his private opinions affecting the company, get rid of him as leader.
It would be one thing, if he was "lineworker" employee. Then person can have private opinions don't affect company. However he isn't mere salary employee in the depths of server hall lifting and plugging in servers to racks and cleaning cooling equipment clean. He is company leadership.
I agree (though I still think it is a good thing to fire fascists, even when they are lowly employees lol)
Literally applying skin stuff from a brand that makes a big deal about being vegan as I read this.
The guy made a donation with his own money. His donation is no more Mullvads than a donation you make privately is representative of the company you work for.
Uhh where do you think that money comes from?
If you've bought Mullvad's services you have unwittingly contributed to that donation.
Every nazis salary comes from somewhere, or do you boycott just about everything?
It's just not buying stuff. You make it sound impossible.
No I mean, every nazis or racist gets their money from somewhere, be it Mullvad or Nestlé or Walmart, how do you avoid supporting that? Do you just don't buy stuff from anywhere or do you have an ever shrinking base of viable options?
Well take this guy for example - I dont know how he invests but I know a significant portion of his income will be coming from Mullvad. So yeah, I can't personally choke all of his income, but I can boycott a wee bit of it. I will do that, because I think its the right thing to do.
Yes I fully understand how he gets money from being part owner of the company, I never said that wasn't the casr. But how he chooses to spend his private cash is not the fault of Mullvad the company.
I completely get wanting to boycott the company to avoid giving him money. But it makes no sense to blame the company for his private spending.
I don't care who's fault it is, I'd still rather use a VPN that didn't have any controversy.
It's absolutely people's business whether they support the public face of a public company giving money to a public political party
Like, what part of Mullvad not being responsible for the donation in any way is it that people are not understanding? The company had no control or say over this dudes donation, so theu can't be responsible for it. Sure, don't buy mullvad so you avoid indirectly giving the nutjob more money to support his fascist political views, that's a totally valid response. But It doesn't change that Mullvad is not, and never can be, responsible for his donation.
Not sure how involved he is but I guess as a co-founder he is bound to be getting some of the Mullvad money
Yes of course he is. but once it leaves the company to pay him his share, Mullvad is not able to control of what that money is spent on whatsoever. Since he made a private decision outside the control or influence of the company, how couod Mullvad be accountable for it?
We get that the people who work for a jerk, are not responsible for the bad decisions of that jerk, and it's a shame that they will suffer for his bad decisions, but that's part of the risks you take as an employee, and there are a great many risks you take working for anyone, most of which the owner class refuse to acknowledge. We all recognize that it's a struggle to find new employment, but they always have the option of finding a new company to work for.
The owner is the primary beneficiary of any capital investment. Collateral damage for their decisions is their responsibility, not the consumer.
I agree.. although I also understand people who feel the other way. As a top guy in the company the money he gets is going to be usually much more than an employee and for just existing at the top. So it feels more like company money than someone getting paid for actually putting in the grunt work to keep the company running. Not to mention that nobody is talking about mullvad and the ideology of random coder #26, the actions of the cofounder is always going to be in the same sentence as mullvad. So I understand taking a stance to not feed into that.
However I don't agree with the moral superiority stance that often (not always) comes with that viewpoint. By all means boycott them yourself but I'm not one to push that on others unless it is actually the company itself donating or if their views start poisoning the quality of the service they provide (brave for example)