Then on Saturday morning, the killing of ICU nurse Alex Pretti by federal officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota, knocked that news cycle—and the movement backing it—off its feet. Even Elon Musk’s X, a reliably friendly space for tech operators with rightward leanings, was suddenly filled with critiques of founders and investors with ties to the Trump administration. The public killing of a protester exercising his right to free speech while legally carrying and concealing a firearm also created an awkward conundrum for a group proclaiming to value civil liberties above all.
Executives and investors from top firms began to express their dismay. “This is absolutely shameful,” wrote Google DeepMind chief scientist Jeff Dean on X. “Every person regardless of political affiliation should be denouncing this.” OpenAI robotics leader Caitlin Kalinowski posted a pointed refresher on the rights granted by the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 14th amendments, prompting an odd retaliatory tweet from Stephen Miller’s wife, Katie Miller.
Only a handful of prominent and highly conservative tech leaders doubled down on their unwavering support of the administration. Joe Lonsdale, the billionaire cofounder of Palantir, called for investigations of protest-organizing groups exchanging information on Signal. Investor Keith Rabois posted throughout the weekend about his belief that “no law enforcement has shot an innocent person.”
Online backlash to such comments was immediate and severe. On Sunday, Rabois’s own boss, Vinod Khosla, publicly disavowed his comments justifying the killing.
Cooper Teboe, a Democratic strategist and donor adviser who often works with Silicon Valley clients, said that even when it comes to techies who don’t consider themselves to be particularly liberal, “their disappointment with Democrats is being outweighed by their anger and disgust with this administration. The murder of Alex Pretti was the tipping point.”
Meanwhile, activist groups are capitalizing on this momentum to push for real policy change. An organization called ICEout.tech has created a pledge and gathered more than 500 signatories from companies like Google, Amazon, Salesforce, and Meta, calling on tech leaders to “join us in demanding ICE out of all of our cities.” Lisa Conn, one of the organizers behind the effort, told me that she and her colleagues are hoping to appeal to not only tech executives’ humanity but also their business sense. “These are capitalists who care about the rule of law,” she said. Abandoning that is “bad for business. Capital flees, talent leaves.” Another group, Purge Palantir, has created the Palantir Payroll tracker to name and shame politicians who have taken money from Palantir.
None of my sources on the right were eager to speak to me on the record for this piece, but I would characterize my conversations this week as ranging from what-can-you-do shrugs to expressions of total despair. Some said that they have all but given up on the midterm elections (and maybe even 2028). Others just defended their right not to weigh in publicly on every political issue.
