Howard Schultz Totally Wants to Run for President

Coy as ever, Howard Schultz on Monday said goodbye to his Starbucks role as executive chairman and continued to fuel speculation on whether he would run for president in 2020. 

“I intend to think about a range of options, and that could include public service,” He told The New York Times. “But I’m a long way from making any decisions about the future.”

“Let’s just see what happens,” he told CNBC. 

Meanwhile, the businessman who turned a local Seattle coffee shop into an empire set up a personal website and (unlike his over-involved history in the company) has been slowly removing himself from Starbucks since last year, when he handed off the CEO role to Kevin Johnson.

Schultz has also been a vocal Donald Trump critic who bashed the U.S. president for “creating episodic chaos every day” and, in January 2017, responded to his travel ban by announcing Starbucks would be hiring 10,000 refugees by 2022.

Though reports say Schultz privately told board members of his plan to retire in the near future, his exit from the company—come June 26—felt sudden. 

All signs point to, yes, he sure is positioning himself for that Oval Office. But barring billionaires and mediocre politicians, the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate lineup is still looking a little flimsy.