Of course the purpose of DEI was not to benefit companies but to encourage equitable and fair treatment of disadvantaged and minority groups within an otherwise systemically white supremacist capitalist framework.

Also, of course, companies were never taking it seriously, and everyone knew this. But if companies were left entirely to their own devices they would still be paying in company scrip and shooting unionists in the head. Even forcing them to pretend to have ethics is better for society as a whole than nothing.