Man Who Hurled Racism at Family Eating Dinner Is a CEO

The latest white person to go viral for making racist comments in public has been identified as the founder and CEO of a San Francisco tech company. The Saturday night incident at a northern California restaurant began while an Asian family was celebrating a birthday and the man, identified by multiple media outlets as Solid8 CEO Michael Lofthouse, allegedly started harassing them. One member started recording, and Lofthouse can be seen on the video telling the family, among other things, "Trump’s gonna f--- you. You f------ need to leave! You f------ Asian piece of s---!" Since the video went viral on social media, Lofthouse's LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook pages have gone dark, per USA Today.

Jordan Chan, who recorded the video, tells KION the family was singing her aunt happy birthday when the man started shouting racist comments at them for no reason. In the video, a server at the restaurant can be heard ordering the man to leave, which he does. The CEO of Asian Law Alliance talked to CBS San Francisco and drew a direct line between the incident and President Trump's rhetoric on the coronavirus pandemic: "Unfortunately, our president has made it a hobby of using terms like ‘Kung Flu’ or ‘Chinese Virus’ or ‘Wuhan Virus.'" (More racism stories.)