The Trump administration’s 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, including at least two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis, Renee Good and Alex Pretti. As immigration enforcement has grown more extreme, even detaining school children seeking legal asylum, tech workers have called on their leaders to speak up.
The tech industry has always been entwined in politics. Companies like Palantir, Clearview AI, Flock, and Paragon are contracted by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and assist in the agency’s 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, like Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Apple’s Tim Cook, and Google’s Sundar Pichai, had prime seats at Trump’s inauguration and have remained allied with him.
A group of tech industry workers opposing ICE, ICEout.tech, wrote in a statement on January 24, the day of ICU nurse Alex Pretti’s death, that industry leaders have leverage, citing how in October they persuaded Trump to call off a planned ICE surge in San Francisco. The statement added that big tech CEOs were in the White House for a screening of a documentary about Melania Trump where Cook, Amazon’s Andy Jassy, and Zoom’s Eric Yuan were in attendance, and called on them to demand ICE out of all cities.
Some of tech’s biggest players have since spoken out, to mixed reception from their employees and the industry.
LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, a major Democratic donor, published an editorial 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. He wrote that Silicon Valley cannot bend the knee to Trump or shrink away, stating that hope without action is an invitation for Trump to trample business and security interests. He said he’s been encouraged to see more tech leaders speaking out.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had publicly opposed Trump’s 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. In the days following Pretti’s death, Altman addressed OpenAI staff in an internal Slack message. He said what’s happening with ICE is going too far and that there is a big difference between deporting violent criminals and what’s happening now. He called President Trump a very strong leader and said he hopes Trump will rise to this moment and unite the country. Altman added that the company is not going to make performative statements but will continue to try to figure out how to actually do the right thing.
In an NBC interview, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei was asked 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 has partnered with Palantir on projects. Amodei reaffirmed that Anthropic does not have any contracts with ICE and emphasized his concern about the need to protect democracies against autocracies. He said he is a big believer in, carefully, with guardrails, arming democracies to defend against these countries, and that we need to defend our own democratic values at home. He said some of the things seen in the last few days concern him about that. He also mentioned the horror seen in Minnesota in a post on X.
Apple CEO Tim Cook addressed staff in an internal memo on January 27, saying this is a time for deescalation. He added that he had a good conversation with the president where he shared his views, and he appreciates Trump’s openness to engaging on issues.
Signal President Meredith Whittaker has been outspoken about the role tech leaders have in social justice. She wrote on X that she wants everyone in tech who’s ever intoned about freedom, or love of privacy, or commitment to liberty, to join in an unequivocal condemnation. In another post, she said masked agents of the US state are executing people in the streets and powerful leaders are openly lying to cover for them, calling on people in her industry to draw on the courage of their convictions and stand up.
Medium CEO Tony Stubblebine posted screenshots of a message he shared with staff in which he explains his reasoning for allowing employees to take part in a nationwide general strike if they choose, though he clarified he is not dictating people’s politics. He wrote that he started the week struggling with the idea that the two murders were just the tip of the iceberg. He wrote about the difficulty of navigating his role as a tech CEO, saying it feels awkward to navigate being both on-mission and on-money, and that he is thinking about the company’s responsibility to make its stance clear. He also pointed out that Medium’s approach as a web publisher reflects the greater values of the company, such as not allowing hateful content.
Google DeepMind Chief Scientist Jeff Dean spoke out about his reaction to the killings in Minnesota. He wrote on X that it is absolutely shameful, calling it agents of a federal agency unnecessarily escalating and then executing a defenseless citizen. He said every person regardless of political affiliation should be denouncing this.
OpenAI’s Head of Global Business James Dyett posted on X about what he sees as hypocrisy in the tech industry. He said there is far more outrage from tech leaders over a wealth tax than masked ICE agents terrorizing communities and executing civilians in the streets, stating that tells you what you need to know about the values of the industry.
While Khosla Ventures partner Keith Rabois has publicly expressed support for ICE and the Trump administration’s practices, others at the firm have publicly opposed these views. Rabois made incendiary comments on X after border patrol agents killed Alex Pretti, prompting one founder to respond that if he were a founder in Khosla Ventures’ portfolio, he would give the money back.
Khosla Ventures partner Ethan Choi responded to clarify that not everyone at the firm agrees with Rabois’ views. He wrote that what happened in Minnesota is plain wrong and said he does not know how you could really see it differently, calling it sad to see a person’s life taken unnecessarily.
Vinod Khosla, the firm’s founder, reposted Choi’s message and called the federal agents macho ICE vigilantes running amuck empowered by a conscious-less administration. He wrote that the video was sickening to watch and the storytelling without facts by authorities was almost unimaginable in a civilized society. He said ICE personnel must have ice water running through their veins to treat other human beings this way, and that humanity should transcend politics. Khosla also posted that he agrees with Reid Hoffman that more tech executives should speak out.