(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters. This column is part of the weekly Reuters Sustainable Finance newsletter, which you can sign up for here)

By Ross Kerber

Oct 23 (Reuters) - The U.S. presidential election poses fraught questions for U.S. business leaders, who traditionally backed the Republican party for its policies like lower corporate taxes.

No longer. Research from a Yale University institute shows that hardly any Fortune 100 CEOs have contributed to Republican former President Donald Trump's campaign, with the notable exception of Tesla's Elon Musk. Yale polling showed 80% of CEOs expect U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris to win the Nov. 5 contest.

Most business leaders, "across parties, are by and large horrified by Trump’s leadership model and his incendiary rhetoric," wrote Yale's Jeffrey Sonnenfeld.

Harris has gotten business support despite a proposal to raise the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%. Backers include Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman and Evercore founder Roger Altman. Yesterday it was reported that JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon would consider a role such as Treasury Secretary in a Harris administration.

Yet it's still hard to parse out exactly where the largest company CEOs stand from their public statements and those of top trade groups, which avoid picking sides.

To make sense of things I spoke with Harris supporter Aaron Levie, CEO of cloud content management platform Box Inc , on Monday. Here is a transcript of our conversation, edited for length and clarity:

Q: A lot of big names came out for Harris but you were the rare public company CEO. Have you heard from some investors who say you're in the public market and should stay neutral per your fiduciary duty?

A: I've heard people disagree with my views or agree with them, but nobody has brought up fiduciary duties. I'd argue it's my civic duty to be able to share my thoughts as I see fit. There's a variety of business policies that will inevitably get decided by this or any other administration.

Q: Am I right you are the rare CEO of a publicly-traded company who has weighed in?

A: I'm not tracking it at the statistical level but I think it's directionally correct that it's more rare than not. Part of it is the culture of Silicon Valley, we're all pretty online, very used to sharing views on a variety of topics online, so probably the behavior of this industry is to be outspoken.

Q: Have you gotten any blowback, either from Trump-favoring customers or otherwise?

A: Not that's reached my desk. I try to remain very business focused and hopefully professional about it. I have respect for voters on all sides.

Q; Tell me why you're for Harris and what concerns you have about Trump?

A: On the Trump side you often saw an increase of volatile policies and a variety of distractions when we look at the first four years. I had a really hard time trying to push through conversations about high-skill immigration because there was a constantly changing landscape around immigration in America. I thought that was bad for business.

Conversely with Harris, I think she's surrounded herself with strategic policy folks. I think she has strong connections to Silicon Valley. I think she's going to take seriously a large set of technology policy issues, whether its AI or bringing back more chip manufacturing to America, or how to create the next generation of jobs in a lot of these advanced industries. Driving a pro-business agenda while also being thoughtful about a lot of the social policies that need to come along with that. My view is that she offers a thoughtful, levelheaded strategic approach to many of these topics.

Q: There are analysts who see Trump as an authoritarian threat to capitalism. They say Trump would be bad for business because there are rule-of-law questions when he is attacking individual companies or threatening the independence of the Fed. Is that part of your thinking?

A: Not as much. I'm sympathetic to some of those arguments, I'm probably more optimistic about all the various counterbalances that the system has. I default to the view that Trump very much exaggerates and has a lot of hyperbole in his commentary. I do think that creates distraction and disruption. Businesses want to be able to operate in stable landscape.

Q: There are studies about the impact of his Tweets from the first term, where he'd attack a company and that would push down its share price for a few days, then it would come back up. So there may be sentiment that everything will be the same. The counter-argument is that all the grownups in the room are gone.

A: I've heard that argument. It's not totally clear to me how that plays out. The main point I'd make is that you want a wide range of ideas to be put out there and you want feedback on those ideas. That's not only how our democracy works and thrives, I think it's essential.

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(Reporting by Ross Kerber; Editing by David Gregorio)

((ross.kerber@thomsonreuters.com; (617) 412 0093;))