Harley-Davidson CEO Jochen Zeitz was a budding German corporate wunderkind when he bought Puma in the 1990s.
Lately, he’s been faced with questions and concerns from American bikers and jaded consumers.
Zeitz is seen as an advocate of far-left ideology and some critics say he has tarnished the reputation of the legendary all-American Harley-Davidson brand since taking over the company in 2020.
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“They’ve become dehumanized, that’s the best way to describe it,” Johnny “Horseshoe” Hennings, a longtime Harley-Davidson rider, told Fox News Digital at the end of last week’s Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota.
“Harley was like a brother to me… now he’s just a ghost.”
Jochen Zeitz, then CEO of Puma AG, speaks at the International Herald Tribune’s Techno-Luxury conference in Berlin, Germany, on November 17, 2009. Zeitz became CEO of Harley-Davidson in 2020. (Michelle Tantucci/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
But Zeitz’s supporters see it differently.
They say claims about Harley’s demise have been exaggerated by older riders.
The Milwaukee-based bike maker reported sales of $5.4 billion in 2019, part of a decade-long downward trend. Sales rose to $5.8 billion last year, marking the third consecutive year of growth under its German-born CEO.
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“He’s a smart guy and Harley has made more money for investors since he took over,” the general manager of a Texas dealership told Fox News Digital.
“It’s that simple.”
“He’s just trying to be a globalist who will promote a new world order.”
But Harley’s iconic image has drawn attention amid what could be called a culture clash.
The American riders of yore who championed and supported Harley-Davidson’s rugged, flag-waving, powerful image of American independence are at odds with the globetrotting European riders who have famous friends, left-leaning goals and who now lead the brand.
Participants in the Hamburg Harley Days Parade cross the Kohlbrand Bridge on June 30, 2024. The American riders of old who supported and promoted Harley-Davidson’s rugged, flag-waving, powerful image of American independence are today facing off against a German-born CEO with famous friends and left-leaning views. (Georg Wendt/Picture Alliance/Getty Images)
“He’s just obsessed with being a New World Order globalist,” Vinnie Terranova, owner of Pappy’s Vintage Cycles in Sturgis, South Dakota, told Fox News Digital.
“He brought in accountants and minions from Europe, but they don’t care where the Harleys come from, their history. There’s no more service, no more interaction with customers.”
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Fox News Digital has reached out to Harley-Davidson, Zeitz and members of the company’s board of directors for comment.
Frustration that Harley-Davidson is alienating its core consumers has come to a head in recent weeks, when Seitz’s “woke” policies have become the center of social media and consumer anger.
Festival participants on Harley-Davidson motorbikes take part in the Big Ride to be held in Dresden, Saxony, Germany in July 2023. (Matthias Rietschel/Picture Alliance/Getty Images)
“We are challenging traditional capitalism and redefining it,” Zeitz said from behind the wheel of a Harley-Davidson at a conference in Switzerland in 2020.
The video was brought to light last week by anti-woke social media warrior Robbie Starbuck.
Zeitz also made a startling reference to terrorism, adding that he was a “sustainable Taliban.”
Selma Hayek and Jochen Zeitz, then Chairman and CEO of Puma, attend the launch of the Puma Ocean Racing Boat at the Boston Museum of Contemporary Art in Boston, Massachusetts on May 12, 2008. (Gail Oskin/WireImage)
Harley-Davidson reversed course amid public outrage earlier this week, announcing it would scale back some of its controversial programs and refocus on its core consumers.
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All this raises questions about who is behind the plan.
Successes so far
Glowing tributes to Mr. Zeitz in various media outlets have described his success at Puma and in the playground of the rich and famous.
“Jochen Zeitz saved Puma. Now he’s turning around the global business,” read a celebratory headline in Wired magazine’s 2018 obituary.
Actress and model Cindy Crawford wears a black leather jacket and sits on a Harley Davidson motorcycle surrounded by actors dressed as police officers on the set of a Pepsi commercial in Los Angeles, California, in 1992. (Roxanne McCann)
Zeitz launched Puma Ocean Racing in 2008, with Selma Hayek christening the first boat in Boston. In 2013, he co-founded The B-Team with Richard Branson, a London and New York City-based company with a mission to define business through social issues, and in 2017 opened the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art in South Africa.
While his professional career has been publicly praised, little is known about Zeitz’s family history.
Little is publicly known about the CEO’s family.
According to what little information has been found online, from profiles in Women’s Wear Daily and other publications, he grew up in Heidelberg, Germany, to parents who worked in medicine, but little else is publicly known about his family.
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A search of records and archives in the United States and Germany turned up no mention of the family’s history.
what teeth What we do know is that he was just 30 when he took over at the helm of Puma in 1993, making him, by some reports, the youngest CEO of a publicly listed company in German history.
On April 6, 2012, during the final miles of the fifth leg of the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12 from Auckland, New Zealand to Itajai, Brazil, the BERG-backed PUMA Ocean Racing, skippered by US sailor Ken Reid, arrives in Itajai, trailed by a convoy of spectators. (Paul Todd/Volvo Ocean Race via Getty Images)
He transformed the discount sneaker brand into a high-end fashion house and cemented his place in the global couture world as a director at Kering, the French parent company of luxury brands such as Bottega Veneta, Gucci, Puma and Saint Laurent.
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Regardless of the mystery or history, the Zeitz has angered some of Harley’s most loyal customers in recent years.
Jochen Zeitz, then CEO of Puma, in Nuremberg, Germany, 2008. (Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)
“Harley-Davidson was our god and we were his disciples,” Mark Wilson of Colorado, a longtime Harley-Davidson rider who worked at a Harley-Davidson dealership for 21 years, told Fox News Digital.
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“And then the god we worshiped failed us,” he said, referring both to the company’s awakening in recent years and to how some customers feel the company has treated them badly.
