Fake Quote Attributed to Lowe’s CEO Marvin Ellison

The viral graphic card is edited. Lowe’s confirmed to us that their CEO Marvin Ellison did not make any such statement.

Over the past year, Home Depot has faced significant online backlash due to the conservative political views of two of its founders, Bernie Marcus and Ken Langone, both of whom have openly supported former President Donald Trump. Despite being retired, their political stances have sparked outrage on social media, with many left-leaning users calling for shoppers to take their business to Lowe’s instead.

Lowe’s has been highlighted by some as a more progressive alternative, citing the company’s financial support of minority-owned businesses and the fact that its current CEO, Marvin Ellison, is one of the few Black CEOs leading a Fortune 500 company.

As the upcoming Presidential election in the United States draws closer, a graphic card has started circulating online, allegedly from CNBC. This graphic claims that Lowe’s CEO, Marvin Ellison, made a statement saying, “If conservatives do not like our values, they should take their money to Home Depot.” The image includes the CNBC logo and a photo of Ellison, giving it an appearance of credibility.

The graphic has sparked considerable discussion, but it raises an important question: Did Marvin Ellison actually make this controversial statement, or is the graphic a fabrication?

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Fact Check-

We began our investigation with a basic keyword search on Google, but it did not yield any news reports attributing this viral statement to Marvin Ellison. If Marvin Ellison had indeed made this statement, it would have likely been covered by major media outlets.

Next, we conducted a keyword search to find any relevant media reports about Lowe’s aired by CNBC. This search led us to a news report published by CNBC on August 20, 2024. The report stated that Lowe’s had reduced its full-year forecast after experiencing a decline in quarterly sales, and the company anticipated weak home improvement spending in the second half of the year. In an interview with CNBC, CEO Marvin Ellison explained that consumers are holding off on spending as they wait for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates. This report came a week after Lowe’s competitor, Home Depot, also projected a weaker second half of the year.

This report also does not mention any similar quote as mentioned in the viral claim.

We found a video news bulletin published by CNBC on 20 August 2024. The headline of the report states “Lowe’s cuts full-year outlook as it expects home improvement sales to weaken”. In this 2 minutes 36 second news bulletin we can see the anchor discussing the quarterly sales report of Lowe’s. The anchor then mentions Marvin’s statement after Lowe’s quarterly sales report was published.

For 46 seconds to 1:01 seconds,we can see the same graphic card as seen in the viral image. However, the text in these graphic cards are different from the one seen in the viral image. 

This graphic card makes it clear that the viral image was created by taking a screengrab of the graphic card aired on CNBC’s news bulletin and then edited with the viral statement. You can see the comparison between the original TV bulletin aired by CNBC which includes the original graphic card and the viral image below.

We also observed that the text font used in the viral image is different from the one used originally by CNBC. The font used in the viral text is Molde Semi Condensed Medium while the font used by the CNBC banner may be close to Roboto, Helvetica Neue or Uniform Pro Regular. You can see the comparison between the viral graphic card and the original graphic card below.

Next, Fact Crescendo reached out to Lowe’s whose Director of External Communications- Steve Salazar confirmed to us that the graphic card is false and the CEO of Lowe’s did not make any such comment.

We also found official tweets made by Lowe’s under users tweets on X,calling out the graphic card as false.

UPDATE– The spokesperson of CNBC confirmed to us that the viral graphic card was not aired by them and is a fake one.

Conclusion-

Fact Crescendo found the viral claim to be Altered and shared with misleading context. The viral graphic card attributing a controversial statement to Lowe’s CEO Marvin Ellison is edited. It was picked from a news bulletin aired by CNBC and later edited with false text.