What CEOs and tech executives had to say about ICE’s actions in Minnesota

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 — Rene Judd and Alex Peretti. As immigration enforcement becomes more extreme — even detaining school children seeking legal asylum — tech workers are calling on their leaders to speak out.

The technology industry has long been entangled in politics. Companies like Palantir, Clearview AI, Flock, and Paragon are contracted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and help with the agency’s crackdowns. But as President Trump took office last year, his connections in the industry grew. Elon Musk has been running a government agency for months, and David Sachs, the prolific Silicon Valley investor, chairs a technology advisory board to the president. The CEOs behind some of the country’s biggest companies — such as Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Apple’s Tim Cook and Google’s Sundar Pichai — took key seats at Trump’s inauguration and have remained aligned with him.

“We know our industry leaders have influence: In October, they convinced Trump to cancel a planned ICE surge in San Francisco,” ICEout.tech, a group of tech industry workers opposed to ICE, wrote in a statement issued on January 24, the day ICU nurse Alex Peretti died. The statement added: “The CEOs of major technology companies are at the White House tonight,” referring to the screening of a documentary about Melania Trump in the presence of Cook, Andy Jassy from Amazon, and Eric Yuan from Zoom. “Now they must go further and join us in demanding that ICE leave all of our cities.”

Since then, some of the biggest players in tech have spoken out, to a mixed reception from their employees and the industry. Below, we keep a running list of what technology leaders have said.

Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn

LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, a major Democratic donor, published an op-ed in the San Francisco Standard on January 29 calling on Silicon Valley to stop trying to be neutral in the wake of the killings in Minnesota.

“We in Silicon Valley cannot bow to Trump,” Hoffman wrote. “We cannot stand back 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 everything he can see, including our business and security interests.”

He said he was encouraged to see more tech leaders speaking out, saying, “It’s a good start for something America needs a lot more of right now.”

“Whichever candidates you’ve supported in the past — or even if you (like many of my friends in Silicon Valley) don’t typically do politics — you almost certainly didn’t want to.” this“, books.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had publicly opposed Trump’s policies during his first term, but changed his tune in the new administration as his company closed deals to develop AI infrastructure for the US government, including the massive $500 billion Stargate project.

In the days following Preti’s death, Altman addressed OpenAI employees in an internal Slack message, which was reported by The New York Times.

“What’s happening with ICE is overblown. There’s a big difference between deporting violent criminals and what’s happening now, and we need to make the distinction properly,” he said. He added: “President Trump is a very strong leader, and I hope he will rise to this moment and unite the country.”

“We didn’t get so woke when that was popular, we didn’t start talking about corporate masculine energy when that was popular, and we’re not going to make a lot of performative statements now about safety or politics or anything else,” Altman added. “But we’re going to keep trying to figure out how to do the right thing as best we can.”

Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic

In an interview with NBC, anchor Tom Llamas asked Dario Amodei about his views on the defense in relation to current events. The broadcaster noted that Anthropic has a contract with the US Department of Defense, and has partnered with Palantir – which supplied technology to ICE – on projects for that agency.

First, Amodei reiterated that Anthropic does not have any contracts with ICE, despite its relationship with the Department of Defense, and stressed his concern about “the need to protect democracies against authoritarian regimes” such as China and Russia.

“I am a strong believer in the need to arm democracies, carefully, in order to defend against these countries,” Amodei said, adding that these values ​​still exist in the context of domestic American politics.

“We have to be really careful about making sure that democracies are worth defending,” he said. “We need to defend our democratic values ​​at home.” “I think some of the things we’ve seen in the last few days have me concerned about that.”

He also mentioned ICE raids in Minneapolis in a post on X, where he noted “the horror we see in Minnesota.”

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple

Apple’s CEO addressed employees in an internal memo on January 27:

“This is a time to calm down,” Cook said. He later added: “I had a good conversation with the president this week where I shared my views, and I appreciate his openness to engage on issues that matter to us all.”

Meredith Whitaker, President, Signal

Like the tech industry insiders behind ICEout.tech, Signal President Meredith Whitaker has been outspoken about the role tech leaders play in social justice.

“I want all tech workers who have sung about freedom, their love of privacy, or their commitment to freedom to join me in unequivocal condemnation,” Whitaker wrote on X.

“Masked US state agents are executing people in the streets and powerful leaders are openly lying to cover them up,” she said in another post. “To everyone in my industry who has ever claimed to value freedom – rely on the courage of your convictions and stand up.”

As an end-to-end encrypted messaging app, Signal is often used by activists to organize community actions.

Tony Stubblebine, CEO of Medium

Tony Stubblebine, the leader of online publishing platform Medium, posted screenshots to threads of a message he shared with employees explaining his reasons for allowing employees to participate in a nationwide general strike if they so choose, though he made clear that it was “not his place to dictate people’s policies.”

“I started the week with my mind and heart in mind because of what I was seeing in Minneapolis, really struggling with the idea that these two murders were just the tip of the icy iceberg of wrongdoing,” Stubblebine wrote.

In the note, he wrote about the difficulty of navigating his role as CTO during this time, saying it was “awkward to navigate between being on mission and on capital.” He added that he thinks about “corporate responsibility.” [its] An obvious position, especially since many other tech organizations are donating to the Trump campaign and supporting the current administration’s agenda.

Stubblebine also noted that Medium’s approach to its role as a web publisher reflects the company’s larger values ​​— “for example, that we don’t allow things like hate content or racial slurs on Medium.”

Jeff Dean, chief scientist at Google DeepMind

Jeff Dean spoke about his reaction to the killings in Minnesota.

“This is absolutely shameful,” Dean wrote on X in response to a video of federal agents shooting Alex Peretti. “Agents of a federal agency needlessly escalate and then execute an unarmed citizen whose crime appears to be using his cell phone camera. Every person regardless of political affiliation should condemn this.”

James Deit, Head of Global Business at OpenAI

James Dett posted on X about what he sees as hypocrisy in the tech industry.

“There is far more anger from tech leaders over a wealth tax than there is from masked ICE agents terrorizing communities and executing civilians in the streets,” Dyette said. “It tells you what you need to know about the values ​​of our industry.”

Keith Rabois, Ethan Choi, and Vinod Khosla are partners at Khosla Ventures

While Khosla Ventures partner Keith Rabois has publicly expressed support for ICE and the Trump administration’s practices, others at the firm have publicly disagreed with those views.

Rabois made inflammatory comments on X after Border Patrol agents killed ICU nurse Alex Pretty in Minneapolis, prompting one of the founders to respond that if he were a founder in Khosla Ventures’ portfolio, he would return the money, calling Rabois “embarrassing.”

Ethan Choi, another partner at Khosla Ventures, responded to the post to clarify that not everyone at the firm agreed with Rabois’ views. “I want to be clear that Keith does not represent everyone’s opinions here [Khosla Ventures]”At least not me,” Choi wrote, adding: “What happened in Minnesota is clearly wrong. I don’t know how you can really see it any differently. It’s sad to see someone’s life needlessly taken.”

Vinod Khosla, the company’s founder, retweeted Choi’s message and described the federal agents as “macho ICE guards running amok backed by clueless management.”

“The video was disgusting to watch and the narration without facts or with fake facts fabricated by the authorities was almost unthinkable in a civilized society,” Khosla wrote. “ICE agents must have ice water running through their veins to be able to treat other human beings this way. There is politics but humanity has to go beyond that.”

Khosla also posted on X that he agrees with Huffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, that more tech executives should speak out against the Trump administration.