\n<\/p>\n
The Trump administration\u2019s approach to immigration has reached a level of violence that the tech industry cannot ignore. In 2026 so far, federal immigration agents have killed at least eight people<\/a>, including at least two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis \u2014 Renee Good and Alex Pretti. As immigration enforcement has grown more extreme \u2014 even detaining school children<\/a> seeking legal asylum \u2014 tech workers have called on their leaders to speak up.<\/p>\n The tech industry has always been entwined in politics. Companies like Palantir, Clearview AI, Flock, and Paragon are contracted by<\/a> U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and assist in the agency\u2019s crackdowns. But as President Trump took office last year, his industry connections have grown. Elon Musk ran a government agency for months, and prolific Silicon Valley investor David Sacks is leading an advisory board on technology for the president. The CEOs behind some of the largest companies in the country \u2014 like Meta\u2019s Mark Zuckerberg, Apple\u2019s Tim Cook, and Google\u2019s Sundar Pichai \u2014 had prime seats at Trump\u2019s inauguration and have remained allied with him.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe know our industry leaders have leverage: in October, they persuaded Trump to call off a planned ICE surge in San Francisco,\u201d ICEout.tech<\/a>, a group of tech industry workers opposing ICE, wrote in a statement on January 24, the day of ICU nurse Alex Pretti<\/a>\u2019s death.\u00a0\u201cBig tech CEOs are in the White House tonight,\u201d the statement added, referring to a screening of a documentary about Melania Trump where Cook<\/a>, Amazon\u2019s Andy Jassy, and Zoom\u2019s Eric Yuan were in attendance. \u201cNow they need to go further, and join us in demanding ICE out of all of our cities.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of tech\u2019s biggest players have since spoken out, to mixed reception from their employees and the industry. Below, we are keeping an ongoing list of what tech leaders have had to say.<\/p>\n LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, a major Democratic donor, published an editorial<\/a> in the San Francisco Standard on January 29, calling on Silicon Valley to stop trying to be neutral in the wake of the Minnesota killings.<\/p>\n \u201cWe in Silicon Valley can\u2019t bend the knee to Trump,\u201d Hoffman wrote. \u201cWe can\u2019t shrink away and just hope the crisis will fade. We know now that hope without action is not a strategy \u2014 it\u2019s an invitation for Trump to trample whatever he can see, including our own business and security interests.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n He said he\u2019s been encouraged to see more tech leaders speaking out, saying: \u201cit\u2019s a good start to something America needs much more of right now.\u201d<\/p>\n Techcrunch event<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBoston, MA<\/span> \u201cWhichever candidates you may have supported in the past \u2014 or even if (like many of my friends in Silicon Valley) you don\u2019t usually do politics \u2014 you almost surely did not want this<\/em>,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had publicly opposed<\/a> Trump\u2019s policies during his first term, but has changed his tune in the new administration as his company has struck deals to develop AI infrastructure for the U.S. government, including the gargantuan $500 billion Stargate project<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the days following Pretti\u2019s death, Altman addressed OpenAI staff in an internal Slack message, which was reported by<\/a> The New York Times.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s happening with ICE is going too far. There is a big difference between deporting violent criminals and what\u2019s happening now, and we need to get the distinction right,\u201d he said. \u201cPresident Trump is a very strong leader, and I hope he will rise to this moment and unite the country.\u201d<\/p>\n Altman added, \u201cWe didn\u2019t become super woke when that was popular, we didn\u2019t start talking about masculine corporate energy when that was popular, and we are not going to make a lot of performative statements now about safety or politics or anything else. But we are going to continue to try to figure out how to actually do the right thing as best as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n In an NBC interview, anchor Tom Llamas asked Dario Amodei<\/a> about his views on defense in relation to current events. The anchor pointed out that Anthropic has a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense, and that it has partnered with Palantir \u2014 which has supplied technology to ICE \u2014 on projects for that agency.<\/p>\n First, Amodei reaffirmed that Anthropic does not have any contracts with ICE, despite its relationship with the Defense Department, and emphasized his concern about \u201cthe need to protect democracies against autocracies\u201d like China and Russia.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a big believer in, carefully, with guardrails, arming democracies to defend against these countries,\u201d Amodei said, adding that these values persist in the context of internal American politics.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to be really careful about making sure democracies are worth defending. We need to defend our own democratic values at home,\u201d he said. \u201cI believe some of the things we\u2019ve seen in the last few days concern me about that.\u201d<\/p>\n He also mentioned ICE\u2019s raids in Minneapolis in a post<\/a> on X, where he referred to \u201cthe horror we\u2019re seeing in Minnesota.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Apple\u2019s CEO addressed staff in an internal memo<\/a> on January 27:<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a time for deescalation,\u201d Cook said. He later added, \u201cI had a good conversation with the president this week where I shared my views, and I appreciate his openness to engaging on issues that matter to us all.\u201d<\/p>\n Like the tech industry workers behind ICEout.tech, Signal President Meredith Whittaker has been outspoken about the role tech leaders have in social justice.<\/p>\n \u201cI want everyone in tech who\u2019s ever intoned about freedom, or their love of privacy, or their commitment to liberty, to join me in an unequivocal condemnation,\u201d Whittaker wrote<\/a> on X.<\/p>\n In another post, she said, \u201cMasked agents of the US state are executing people in the streets and powerful leaders are openly lying to cover for them. To everyone in my industry who\u2019s ever claimed to value freedom\u2014draw on the courage of your convictions and stand up.\u201d<\/p>\n As an end-to-end-encrypted messaging app, Signal is often used by activists to organize community actions.<\/p>\n The leader of the online publishing platform Medium, Tony Stubblebine posted screenshots on Threads of a message<\/a> he shared with staff in which he explains his reasoning for allowing employees to take part in a nationwide general strike<\/a> if they so choose, though he clarified that he is \u201cnot in the business of dictating people\u2019s politics.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI started the week in my own head and heart over what I was seeing in Minneapolis and really struggling with the idea that those two murders were just the tip of the iceberg of wrongs,\u201d Stubblebine wrote.<\/p>\n In the memo, he writes about the difficulty of navigating his role as a tech CEO during this time, saying that it feels \u201cawkward to navigate being both on-mission and on-money.\u201d He added that he is thinking about the company\u2019s \u201cresponsibility to make [its] stance clear, especially as many other tech orgs are donating to the Trump campaign and supporting the current administration\u2019s agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n Stubblebine also pointed out that Medium\u2019s approach to its role as a web publisher reflects the greater values of the company \u2014 \u201cfor example, that we don\u2019t allow things like hateful content or racist slurs on Medium.\u201d<\/p>\n Jeff Dean has spoken out about his reaction to the killings in Minnesota.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is absolutely shameful,\u201d Dean wrote<\/a> on X, responding to a video of federal agents shooting Alex Pretti. \u201cAgents of a federal agency unnecessarily escalating, and then executing a defenseless citizen whose offense appears to be using his cell phone camera. Every person regardless of political affiliation should be denouncing this.\u201d<\/p>\n James Dyett posted on X about what he sees as hypocrisy in the tech industry.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is far more outrage from tech leaders over a wealth tax than masked ICE agents terrorizing communities and executing civilians in the streets,\u201d Dyett said<\/a>. \u201cTells you what you need to know about the values of our industry.\u201d<\/p>\n While Khosla Ventures partner Keith Rabois has publicly expressed support for ICE and the Trump administration\u2019s practices, others at the firm have publicly opposed these views.<\/p>\n Rabois made incendiary comments on X after border patrol agents killed ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, prompting one founder to respond<\/a> that that if he were a founder in Khosla Ventures\u2019 portfolio, he would give the money back, calling Rabois \u201can embarrassment.\u201d<\/p>\n Ethan Choi, another partner at Khosla Ventures, responded<\/a> to the post to clarify that not everyone at the firm agrees with Rabois\u2019 views. \u201cI want to make it clear that Keith doesn\u2019t represent everyone\u2019s views here at [Khosla Ventures], at least not mine,\u201d Choi wrote<\/a>, adding: \u201cWhat happened in Minnesota is plain wrong. Don\u2019t know how you could really see it differently. Sad to see a person\u2019s life taken unnecessarily.\u201d<\/p>\n Vinod Khosla, the firm\u2019s founder, reposted Choi\u2019s message and called the federal agents \u201cmacho ICE vigilantes running amuck empowered by a conscious-less administration.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe video was sickening to watch and the storytelling without facts or with invented fictitious facts by authorities almost unimaginable in a civilized society,\u201d Khosla wrote<\/a>. \u201cICE personnel must have ice water running thru their veins to treat other human beings this way. There is politics but humanity should transcend that.\u201d<\/p>\n Khosla also posted on X that he agrees with Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder, that more tech executives should speak out against the Trump administration.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nReid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn<\/h2>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJune 23, 2026<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\nSam Altman, CEO at OpenAI<\/h2>\n
Dario Amodei, CEO at Anthropic<\/h2>\n
Tim Cook, CEO at Apple<\/h2>\n
Meredith Whittaker, president of Signal<\/h2>\n
Tony Stubblebine, CEO at Medium<\/h2>\n
Jeff Dean, chief scientist at Google DeepMind<\/h2>\n
James Dyett, OpenAI\u2019s head of global business<\/h2>\n
Keith Rabois, Ethan Choi, and Vinod Khosla, partners at Khosla Ventures<\/h2>\n