Tech workers urge CEOs to condemn ICE

• Silicon Valley has shifted rightward this term, as many embraced President Trump's pro-AI growth and economic policies.

State of play: More than 450 tech workers from companies including Google, Salesforce, Meta, OpenAI and Amazon have signed a letter urging CEOs to contact the White House, demand that ICE leave cities, and cancel all company contracts with ICE.

• "Tech professionals are speaking up against this brutality, and we call on all our colleagues who share our values to use their voice," states the letter organized by ICEout.tech, an initiative pushing for tech CEOs to speak out against ICE.
• "We know our industry leaders have leverage: in October, they persuaded Trump to call off a planned ICE surge in San Francisco."

The organizers of ICEout.tech said their call has even more urgency following the attendance of Amazon, AMD, Apple and Zoom executives at a White House screening of first lady Melania Trump's new documentary just hours after the shooting.

Axios reached out to more than a dozen top tech companies on Pretti's killing, the potential use of their technologies in protest surveillance, and executives' attendance of the documentary screening.

• Representatives from Amazon, Anthropic, Apple, Google, IBM, Meta, OpenAI and Salesforce did not reply to a request for comment.
• A Microsoft representative told Axios the company was looking into the matter, but did not comment further.

Context: The silence stands in contrast to earlier activism on the part of tech companies and executives. Companies were vocal about President Trump's policies on immigration, race and LGBTQ+ rights during his first term.

• Tech execs during Trump's second term have instead shown up frequently to be seen alongside the president and boost his policies.

Some notable tech figures who have spoken out against ICE and Trump's immigration enforcement tactics following Pretti's death include Meta's former chief AI scientist Yann LeCun, Box CEO Aaron Levie, Google DeepMind chief scientist Jeff Dean and computer scientist Paul Graham.

• "This is absolutely shameful," Dean posted on X. "Agents 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."
• "Murderers," LeCun posted on X.
• LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman wrote on X it was time for all Americans to speak out.

A number of tech leaders said that they try to avoid publicly discussing politics, but that what happened in Minneapolis forced them to break their silence.

• "It is about what America stands for," Browser Company CEO Josh Miller wrote on X. "Call it morals, call it decency, whatever word resonates most with you. Our government executed a man yesterday. I am deeply sad for his parents, and hope this serves as a unifying moment for all of us. Deep down, we all know this is not right."
• Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah said he also felt compelled to say something. "I generally believe the best way I can serve the world is as a non-partisan expert, and my genuine beliefs are quite moderate," Olah wrote on X.
• "So the bar is very high for me to comment. But recent events — a federal agent killing an ICU nurse for seemingly no reason and with no provocation — shock the conscience."

The bottom line: A common refrain on social media has been that tech leaders are vocal about policies around wealth taxes and regulations they don't like, but are silent now.