The Trump administration’s approach to immigration has reached a level of violence that the tech industry cannot ignore. In 2026 until now, federal immigration agents have killed at least eight peopleincluding at least two US citizens in Minneapolis – Renee Good and Alex Pretti. As immigration enforcement grows more extreme – even hold school children seek legal asylum – tech workers have called on the leader to speak up.
The tech industry has always been in politics. Companies like Palantir, Clearview AI, Flock, and Paragon are contracted by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and assistance in agency crackdowns. But when President Trump took office last year, the industry’s connections grew. Elon Musk ran a government agency for months, and prolific Silicon Valley investor David Sacks headed the president’s technology advisory council. The CEOs behind some of the country’s biggest companies — like Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Apple’s Tim Cook, and Google’s Sundar Pichai — had key seats at Trump’s inauguration and remain allies with him.
“We know our industry leaders have influence: in October, they persuaded Trump to cancel a planned ICE surge in San Francisco.” ICEout.techa group of tech industry workers opposed to ICE, wrote in a statement on January 24, ICU Nurse Day Alex Pratiwihe’s dead. “Big tech CEOs are at the White House tonight,” the statement added, indicating where a documentary screening of Melania Trump was held cookAndy Jassy from Amazon, and Eric Yuan from Zoom were in attendance. “Now they need to go further, and join the prosecution of ICE from all over the city.”
Some of the biggest players in tech are starting to talk about the mixed reception from employees and the industry. Below, we keep a list of what technology leaders have to say.
Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn
LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, a major Democratic donor, published and 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 murder.
“We in Silicon Valley cannot bend the knee to Trump,” Hoffman wrote. “We cannot minimize it and just hope the crisis goes away. We now know that hope without action is not a strategy – it is an invitation for Trump to trample on anything he can see, including our own business and security interests.”
He said he was encouraged to see more tech leaders speaking out, saying: “it’s a great start to what America needs right now.”
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“Any candidate you’ve supported in the past — or even if (like my friends in Silicon Valley) you don’t normally do politics — you certainly don’t want to. this,” he wrote.
Sam Altman, CEO at OpenAI
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has public opposition Trump’s policy during his first term, however, has changed tone in the new administration as his company has made a deal to develop AI infrastructure for the US government, including $500 billion. The Stargate Project.
In the days following Pretti’s death, Altman told OpenAI staff in an internal Slack message, ie reported by The New York Times.
“What’s happening with ICE is going to go a long way. There’s a big difference between deporting violent criminals and what’s happening now, and we need to make that distinction,” he said. “President Trump is a strong leader, and I hope he will step up this time and unite the country.”
Altman added, “We didn’t become super woke when it was popular, we didn’t start talking about male company energy when it was popular, and we won’t make many performative statements now about safety or politics or anything else. But we will continue to try to understand how to actually do the best thing as we can.”
Dario Amodei, CEO at Anthropic
In an NBC interview, anchor Tom Llamas asked Dario Amodei about his views on defense in relation to current events. The anchor noted that Anthropic has a contract with the US Department of Defense, and has partnered with Palantir — which provides technology to ICE — on projects for the agency.
First, Amodei reiterated that Anthropic does not have a contract with ICE, despite its ties to the Department of Defense, and stressed his concern about “the need to protect democracies against autocracies” like China and Russia.
“I believe, with caution, with guardrails, providing democracy to defend these countries,” said Amodei, adding that the value remains in the context of America’s internal politics.
“We must be very careful about making democracy must be defended. We must defend our democratic values at home,” he said. “I’m sure some of the things we’ve seen in the last few days are concerned about that.”
He also mentioned the ICE raid in Minneapolis in a post at X, where he mentions “the horror we saw in Minnesota.”
Tim Cook, CEO at Apple
Apple’s CEO said the staff internal memo on January 27:
“It’s time for deescalation,” Cook said. He then added, “I had a conversation with the president this week where I shared my views, and I appreciate his openness to engage on issues that are important to all of us.”
Meredith Whittaker, Signal President
Like the tech industry workers behind ICEout.tech, Signal President Meredith Whittaker has been outspoken about the role of tech leaders in social justice.
“I want everyone in technology who has ever talked about freedom, or love of privacy, or commitment to freedom, to join me in unequivocal condemnation,” Whittaker said. write in X.
In another post, he said, “The masked agents of the US state are executing people in the streets and powerful leaders are openly lying to cover it up.
As an end-to-end encrypted messaging app, Signal is often used by activists to organize community action.
Tony Stubblebine, CEO at Medium
The head of online publishing platform Medium, Tony Stubblebine posted an image on Threads of a message he shared with the staff who explained the reason for allowing employees to take part in a national general strike if he chooses, although he clarified that he is “not in the business of dictating people’s politics.”
“I started the week in my own head and heart about what I saw in Minneapolis and really struggled with the idea that the two murders were just the tip of the wrong iceberg,” Stubblebine wrote.
In the memo, he wrote about the difficulty of navigating his role as a tech CEO during this time, saying it was “awkward to navigate being on-mission and on-money.” He added that he thought it was “the responsibility of companies to make a clear stance, especially since so many other tech organizations contributed to the Trump campaign and supported the current administration’s agenda.”
Stubblebine also pointed out that Medium’s approach to its role as a web publisher reflects its larger company values — “for example, we don’t allow hateful content or racist slurs on Medium.”
Jeff Dean, chief scientist at Google DeepMind
Jeff Dean has spoken about the reaction to the murders in Minnesota.
“That’s a real shame,” Dean said write in X, responding to the video of the federal agent shooting Alex Pretti. “Agents of federal agencies do not need to step up, then execute defenseless citizens whose violations are seen using cell phone cameras. Everyone regardless of political affiliation must reject this.”
James Dettet, OpenAI’s head of global business
James Dyett posted on X about what he sees as hypocrisy in the tech industry.
“There is more outrage from tech leaders over wealth taxes than masked ICE agents terrorizing communities and executing civilians in the streets,” Dhett said. “Tells you what you need to know about the values of our industry.”
Keith Rabois, Ethan Choi, and Vinod Khosla, partners at Khosla Ventures
While Khosla Ventures partner Keith Rabois has expressed support for ICE and the Trump administration’s practices, others at the firm have publicly opposed that view.
Rabois made incendiary comments at X after a border patrol agent killed ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, killing one of its founders. to respond to that if he was a co-founder in the portfolio of Khosla Ventures, he would return the money, calling Rabois “shameful.”
Ethan Choi, another partner at Khosla Ventures, the answer to the post to clarify that not everyone in the company agrees with Rabois’ views. “I want to make it clear that Keith does not represent everyone here at (Khosla Ventures), least of all me,” Choi said writeadded: “What happened in Minnesota is so wrong. I don’t know how you can see it differently. It’s sad to see the lives of people who don’t need to.”
Vinod Khosla, the company’s founder, retweeted Choi’s message and called the federal agents “macho ICE vigilantes running amuck provided by an unconscious administration.”
“The video is horrifying to watch and the story is devoid of facts or fictitious facts created by the authorities which is almost unimaginable in a civilized society,” Khosla. write. “ICE officers must have ice water running through their veins to treat another human being this way. There is politics but humanity must transcend.”
Khosla also posted on X that he agreed with Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, that more tech executives should speak out against the Trump administration.