The CEO of FedEx, Frederick Smith, recently challenged New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger to a debate after the paper printed an erroneous story claiming that FedEx hadn’t paid a single dollar in federal taxes in 2018, according to The Hill.
On Sunday, the same day that the Times published the story, Smith disputed the “distorted and factually incorrect” story by pointing out that FedEx had invested around “$6 billion of capital” into the U.S. economy. By contrast, the Times invested only $57 million in the U.S. economy in the same year.
Smith also pointed out the hypocrisy of the Times publishing the story, considering that the paper also did not pay any federal taxes in 2017 “on earnings of $111 million,” and paying only “$30 million in 2018,” which equated to “18 percent of their pretax book income.”
Smith then declared that he would challenge Sulzberger, “to a public debate in Washington D.C. with me and the FedEx corporate vice president of tax.” There has currently been no response from the Times regarding Smith’s challenge.