The Uber executive who suggested hiring a team to dig up dirt on reporters covering negative aspects of the business apologized for his statement Monday evening.
"The remarks attributed to me at a private dinner - borne out of frustration during an informal debate over what I feel is sensationalistic media coverage of the company I am proud to work for - do not reflect my actual views and have no relation to the company's views or approach. They were wrong no matter the circumstance and I regret them," Emil Michael said in a statement.
Michael suggested the idea of spending "a million dollars" to hire researchers to look into the personal and family lives of journalists who are reporting about Uber at a dinner at Manhattan's Waverly Inn on Friday.
The dinner was attended by influential New Yorkers including actor Ed Norton, publisher Arianna Huffington, and a BuzzFeed editor who broke the story.
The BuzzFeed editor was invited to the dinner by journalist Michael Wolff, who organized the dinner and apparently never told the editor that it was off-the-record.
"We have not, do not and will not investigate journalists,"
"Those remarks have no basis in the reality of our approach," Uber spokeswoman Nairi Hourdajian said in a statement after Michael released his. "There appeared to be confusion over whether the dinner chat had been 'off-the-record.'"
