Sisolak puts the Lord of Layoffs in charge of Nevada’s economic response

LAS VEGAS – Yesterday, Gov. Steve Sisolak announced former MGM Resorts International CEO Jim Murren will head a public-private partnership—called the COVID-19 Response, Relief and Recovery Task Force—to address Nevada’s economic response.

The same Murren that accepted a $32 million payoff to leave his role at MGM a month ago, only to lay off MGM’s employees weeks later with only a promise to pay them for two weeks.

“When things started breaking apart, [Murren] made sure he put his golden parachute together. That’s not fair,” an anonymous part-time employee at Aria told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Murren’s business practices also cast a dark shadow on Sisolak’s task force. The MGM CEO sued victims of 1 October less than a year after the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, and laid off over a thousand employees in 2019.

Did Sisolak ask Murren about the $32 million pay off and whether he would forego it so that MGM’s workforce can receive a paycheck during this unprecedented shutdown?

Why does Sisolak think Murren, the Lord of Layoffs, is a good face for Nevada’s economic response?

Should people suffering from Nevada’s economic shutdown worry that Murren may sue them like he did the victims of 1 October?

Jim Murren is a failed CEO who is profiting during a time of economic turmoil while his former employees stress over how they are going to keep a roof over their head.

Gov. Sisolak owes Nevadans more reassurances that Murren is the right person to head Nevada’s economic response than his pixelated and tech-challenged Facebook press conferences have provided thus far.