David Siegel, who threatened to fire all of his employees and close his company if President Obama is re-elected, told CNBC Wednesday that “I don’t want to go through another four years under the Obama administration where I have to downsize my company again.”
Siegel, the founder and CEO of Westgate Resorts, sent an email Monday to his employees warning that “if any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current president plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of his company.”
In a telephone interview on "Closing Bell," Siegel said his email was for his employees and not meant to be made public. But after the email was leaked to the media, it quickly became a hot topic on television and the internet.
“The reaction I’ve gotten so far has been very positive,” Seigel said. “Just today, I actually had an employee stopped in the parking lot got out of his car and came over and say ‘We’re behind you.’”
During the past four years Siegel cut his company in half and laid off 7,000 workers, as financing dried up after the financial crisis.
While Obama wasn’t president when the financial crisis hit, Siegel said, “What I’m blaming Obama for is not doing something about the economy in the last four years.”
“We’re in a downward spiral and the next four years are going to be worse,” he warned.