[shstalwart]

Is whataboutism the modern incarnation of ad hominem?

Personally, I would classify these objections about Balsillie's arguments as ad hominem attacks. If the point he makes is logically coherent, what does his personal motivation it matter?

[caprese]

Whataboutism is an ad hominem fallacy when the context is US-Russia geopolitical relations. Traditionally it has been used to successfully ignore accurate observations about US/Russia, when the messenger is Russian/US respectively.

Here the concept has been extended to large multinational corporate relations.