People are constantly confusing the issue with 'politics'.
This is not about Trump or Obama, that's easily avoided, it's about Identity Politics, which cannot be avoided:
They are arguing over Identity Politics and definitions of privilege.
"“The fact that you can be a white male, and come to this meeting and call people racist and say ‘white supremacy doesn't exist’ when it's blatant at this company is white privilege,” the employee said. “The fact that he wasn’t corrected and was in fact thanked — it makes me sick.”"
The Executive basically stated he doesn't believe the organization or it's culture is rooted in 'White Supremacy' - echoing the aggressive language used nowadays in Critical Race Theory.
The Employee, I believe mischaracterized that statement as 'the denial that racism exists' - which is an unfair, but also pointed out the denial of 'White Priviledge' - which is a valid point to make if one actually believes that.
The argument is existentially problematic - some people believe that groups are not inherently racist, others believe that if there are White executives then the system is inherently racist, going so far as to use terms like 'White Supremacy'.
This 'debate' is raging everywhere right now - schools, public sector, private companies, NGOs etc.
It's hard to rectify because those who don't see systems as overtly or fundamentally racist are challenge by those who do, and those who do, are inclined to believe those that disagree with them are basically evil.
It's a low-grade cultural race war unfortunately, pitting regular people against other regular people, often over some very abstract things, like naming things 'blacklist/whitelist' instead of 'blocklist/playlist' etc..