Big Tech Leaders Have No Idea What to Say About ICE
A marriage of convenience between American oligarchs and Donald Trump is running into reality, where normal people are furious about ICE killing two people.
When Donald Trump became president again, America’s Big Tech founders and CEOs decided to align with him—some explicitly, through rhetoric and government contracts, others through complicit silence. There was a perverse logic to their choice, if you squint until your eyes water: Donny has wriggled out of every jam, and he’s feeling extra vindictive now, so we should be on his good side. Plus, we’ve got AI Czar David Sacks on our team, and we want to de-regulate the AI industry as much as possible while the GOP has a trifecta.
This was a terrible decision, and a morally repugnant one too. It was only a matter of time until a self-inflicted, destabilizing scandal hit, at which point the American public would take stock of who’s on the side of the Trump administration.
On January 7, ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Nicole Good while she attempted to drive away from him. Polls found that 35% of Americans considered Ross’s killing to be justified, compared to 53% who considered it unjustified. Minneapolis residents doubled down on their strident protests against ICE, despite freezing-cold temperatures. On January 24, ICE agents killed Alex Pretti. Footage of Pretti’s execution is nauseating and impossible for normal people to rationalize. ICE’s brutality, coupled with global unease about Trump’s obsessive Greenland aims (or Iceland, depending on what time of day you ask him), have cascaded into a legitimate crisis.
For the first time in a while, there is a societal pressure to say something about this administration. That’s why you’re seeing apolitical TikTok influencers disavow ICE, Republican Senators calling for Kristi Noem to resign, anonymous blame-gaming from Trump officials, and the governor of Oklahoma admitting that ICE has gone too far. Even employees at Palantir are pressing their bosses about how company software is being utilized by ICE.
America’s tech leaders, on the other hand, don’t know what to say or do. They can’t really disavow Trump, because they just buddied up to his administration. They also can’t outright support ICE’s killings, because they risk isolating their employees and inspiring consumer boycotts. Trump’s approval ratings have a floor, but there’s no floor for the approval ratings of his oligarch hanger-ons. Mark Zuckerberg does not have a loyal army of chuds at his disposal. Elon Musk has superfans, but nowhere near as many as Trump does. Already, no one likes Jeff Bezos.
So Big Tech’s luminaries have landed on two cautious approaches:
Most are staying silent and praying this blows over sooner than later. This is probably the “smart” strategy from a crisis PR perspective, but is unfathomably cowardly and carries its own risks. You can only remain quiet for so many scandals in a row.
Some are releasing carefully worded “internal” messages that are selectively forwarded to media outlets so they can be consumed by the public. The incongruent goal of these messages is to stay in Trump’s good graces and also gesture towards being a human being who is capable of sympathy and emotion.
In fairness, there have been a few strong statements from Big Tech higher-ups that are worthy of mentioning. OpenAI Senior Executive James Dyett wrote, “There is far more outrage from tech leaders over a wealth tax than masked ICE agents terrorizing communities and executing civilians in the streets. Tells you what you need to know about the values of our industry.”
Jeff Dean, chief scientist of Google DeepMind and Google Research, wrote of Pretti’s killing: “This is absolutely shameful. 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.”
And an open letter has been circulating among tech employees calling for “ICE out of our cities.” (William Fitzgerald, who runs the Worker Agency and is the publisher of Hard Reset, has helped promote the letter.)
But the bosses of these tech employees have been caught flat-footed. In fact, not a single Big Tech founder/CEO has issued a genuinely thoughtful statement about ICE’s incursions, harassment campaigns, and killings.
I put together a list of notable statements (or lack thereof), and tacked on a few other figures who have especially influential voices in the tech sector. I expect maybe one or two of the folks below will eventually flip from the “nary a word” category to the “mealy-mouthed PR exercise” category, but nothing more than that.
Nary a Word
Marc Andreessen, venture capitalist
The “chief ideologist of the Silicon Valley elite,” as Ezra Klein once called Andreessen, has no thoughts on ICE killing two Americans.
Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon
Bezos is focused on other matters. Melania Trump reportedly pitched Bezos on financing a documentary about how she nods her head during meetings and studiously avoids her husband, and then Amazon spent $40 million to secure the film rights to the documentary, which is titled Melania. Amazon has since spent another $35 million marketing the film, which is out on January 30. That combined $75 million could have gone to Bezos’s struggling Washington Post—whose reporters are currently publicly pleading with the world’s wealthiest man to not proceed with devastating layoffs—but Bezos seems pretty content letting the paper die.
Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google
Brin is also focused on other matters, like buying a $42 million mansion on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe, presumably to establish residency there so he can avoid paying a one-time billionaire tax in California. Don’t expect him to show up at any protests.
Greg Brockman, president of OpenAI
The biggest donor to Trump’s super PAC has unsurprisingly kept his mouth shut. It’s hard to imagine he disagrees with how the Trump administration is deploying ICE.
Michael Dell, CEO of Dell
Dell, who’s quietly worth $133 billion, has positioned himself as a benevolent, apolitical figure. In December, he and his wife announced that they were donating $250 each to 25 million children who are eligible for “Trump Accounts,” a still-nebulous investment accounting program that the federal government claims is launching on July 5. “I don’t think this is in any way a partisan activity,” Dell told the New York Times. “It’s certainly not intended to be.” You would think a nonpartisan who’s already bolstered a key Trump initiative to the tune of $6.25 billion would be well-positioned to speak openly and honestly about ICE, but alas. His latest post on X is about a new Dell monitor.
Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle
Not a shocker. TikTok is broken, by the way.
Andy Jassy, president of Amazon
Jassy seems to be focused on more important matters: laying off 16,000 Amazon workers.
Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir
I admit I’m a little surprised Karp hasn’t weighed in yet. Not because he’d say anything productive, but because he’s been a vocal defender of Palantir’s work with ICE.
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft
In 2018, Nadella blogged about America’s immigration policies. He wrote that he was appalled by how the Trump administration was separating families at the border: “America is a nation of immigrants, and we’re able to attract people from around the world to contribute to our economy, our communities and our companies. We are also a beacon of hope for those who need it the most. This is what makes America stronger. We will always stand for immigration policies that preserve every person’s dignity and human rights.”
Eight years later, nothing from Nadella about ICE.
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google
Pichai, like Nadella, spoke out about Trump’s family separation policy in 2018: “The stories and images of families being separated at the border are gut-wrenching,” he wrote. “Urging our government to work together to find a better, more humane way that is reflective of our values as a nation.”
Eight years later, Google DeepMind employees asked Pichai for additional protective measures against ICE, after a “federal agent allegedly tried to enter Google’s Cambridge campus,” Wired reported. There’s no indication Pichai responded, and he’s said nothing publicly about ICE. His latest post on X is about how he wishes he had access to Google Gemini when he was practicing for the SATs.
Lisa Su, CEO of AMD
Su was reportedly an attendee of the Melania movie premiere.
Mark Zuckerberg, founder/CEO of Meta
Meta has blocked users on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads from posting a database of ICE agents called ICE List. That is as close as you’ll get to a search result if you Google “Mark Zuckerberg ICE.”
Mealy-Mouthed PR Exercises
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI
Altman’s remarks, which he sent on Slack, were first reported by Andrew Ross Sorkin at the New York Times. “Credit to Sam Altman,” Sorkin wrote. I do not agree. Here’s Altman’s Slack message:
I love the US and its values of democracy and freedom and will be supportive of the country however I can; OpenAI will too. But part of loving the country is the American duty to push back against overreach. What’s happening with ICE is going too far. There is a big difference between deporting violent criminals and what’s happening now, and we need to get the distinction right.
President Trump is a very strong leader, and I hope he will rise to this moment and unite the country. I am encouraged by the last few hours of response and hope to see trust rebuilt with transparent investigations.
As a company, we aim to stick to our convictions and not get blown around by changing fashions too much. We didn’t become super woke when that was popular, we didn’t 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, engage with leaders and push for our values, and speak up clearly about it as needed.
A few follow-up questions for Altman:
What is “happening now,” exactly?
In the days since Altman wrote that he hoped Trump would “unite the country,” the president has accused Minneapolis Rep. Ilhan Omar of staging an attack against herself. Trump has also posted conspiracies about the Chinese government funding anti-ICE protests in Minnesota. And he reposted a right-wing influencer who called Pretti a “domestic terrorist.” Does Altman still believe the president will “rise to this moment and unite the country?”
Why is Altman inserting petty, unrelated barbs about Zuckerberg in a post that’s ostensibly about ICE harassing and killing people?
Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic
Amodei has garnered praise for sort of acknowledging the existence of ICE, but I’m not sure he’s really said much of substance. On X, he posted a link to an essay he recently penned, adding: “it is mainly about AI and about the future. But given the horror we’re seeing in Minnesota, its emphasis on the importance of preserving democratic values and rights at home is particularly relevant.”
During an NBC News interview, he said that Anthropic doesn’t have contracts with ICE, and “what we’ve seen in the last few days doesn’t make me more enthusiastic” about working with the agency. That’s a somewhat slippery interpretation of how Anthropic operates. The company has a partnership with Palantir, which does work closely with ICE. To that, all Amodei could muster was, “When we work with customers like Palantir, we don’t work through ICE.”
Amodei otherwise gave a rambling answer when asked about the situation in Minneapolis. He talked about the importance of democracy for a while, before winding up to the following: “We need to defend our own democratic values at home. Some of the things we’ve seen in the last few days concern me about that. I’ve been glad to see folks, including now even President Trump, calling for investigations into what happened.”
Those “investigations” will reportedly be handled internally, by Customs and Border Protection.
Tim Cook, CEO of Apple
Cook joined Su as an attendee of the Melania premiere, an own-goal that I would guess is the reason he later sent an internal memo to Apple employees. The memo was first obtained by Bloomberg:
I’m heartbroken by the events in Minneapolis, and my prayers and deepest sympathies are with the families, with the communities, and with everyone that’s been affected.
This is a time for deescalation. I believe America is strongest when we live up to our highest ideals, when we treat everyone with dignity and respect no matter who they are or where they’re from, and when we embrace our shared humanity. This is something Apple has always advocated for. I 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.
I know this is very emotional and challenging for so many. I am proud of how deeply our teams care about the world beyond our walls. That empathy is one of Apple’s greatest strengths and it is something I believe we all cherish.
A few follow-up questions for Cook:
What events in Minneapolis is he referencing?
Which families is he praying for? With whom does he sympathize?
Who needs to deescalate?
What views did he share with the president?
Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce
On X, Benioff posted a blurry photo of the state flag of Minnesota, with the cryptic caption, “May the one who brings Peace bring Peace to All.” Then he posted a one-minute teaser for a Mr. Beast-Salesforce Super Bowl advertisement.
They don’t have to say anything, just like the meat packing firms and hotel operators. ICE is just to get everyone use to jackboots. The Tech Bros are already planning for a soylent green future.