The privacy community is always told to verify, not trust. The board of Proton have decided to publicly state something that leads a lot of people to be unable to trust them - namely supporting the choices of an extreme right wing leader who has repeatedly demonstrated the foolishness of trusting anything he says or does.

This CEO is totally free to have their own thoughts but its verging on the ridiculous to think that other people aren’t going to have a negative reaction to them and seek alternatives. Its next to impossible to trust a company that express approval of Trump decisions because its impossible to trust Trump. And Proton going out of their way to publicly state their approval when they are not even a US org and would’ve lost nothing by simply not saying anything suggests a board that was keen to publicly express support for Trump. It inevitably makes people who are already on the receiving end of Trumpian hate legislation, or who soon will be, wonder what else Proton might be willing to do for Trump in the future.