{"id":66682,"date":"2026-01-28T00:57:44","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T03:57:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tech.einnews.com\/article\/887120631"},"modified":"2026-01-28T00:57:44","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T03:57:44","slug":"tech-workers-speak-out-against-ice-after-minneapolis-killings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/2026\/01\/28\/tech-workers-speak-out-against-ice-after-minneapolis-killings\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech Workers Speak Out Against ICE After Minneapolis Killings"},"content":{"rendered":"
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While many tech workers protested President Donald Trump\u2019s policies during his first term, Silicon Valley\u2019s rank and file has been quieter over the past year as their bosses genuflect to his administration. But that may be changing following the killings of Renee Good<\/a> and Alex Pretti <\/a>in Minneapolis. <\/p>\n

Last week, following the killing of Good, more<\/a> than 200 Silicon Valley staffers published a letter urging tech leaders to use their platforms to call for ICE\u2019s removal from U.S. cities. As of Tuesday, following the killing of Pretti, the letter has more than 450 signatories, including employees from Google, Amazon and TikTok. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The letter argues that tech leaders have a unique ability to influence Trump. \u201cToday we\u2019re calling on our CEOs to pick up the phone,\u201d the letter reads. It also calls on tech companies to end their contracts with ICE.<\/p>\n

The hundreds of staffers who signed the letter make up a small fraction of Silicon Valley. But the letter is the first major organized protest from the tech world against Trump in years\u2014and a sign that what used to be a loud and progressive bloc may be stirring to life.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a lot of people who have tried to keep their heads down, just the sheer horror of what\u2019s happening on our streets has shocked them into realizing they have to say something,\u201d says Pete Warden, a startup founder and former Google engineer who signed the letter.<\/p>\n

Shifting Times<\/h2>\n

During the first Trump administration, many Big Tech employees responded with outrage to Trump\u2019s policies, particularly around immigration. Google co-founder Sergey Brin, for example, joined a protest <\/a>against Trump\u2019s Muslim ban at the San Francisco airport in 2017.
But when President Biden took the White House, many Silicon Valley leaders became disenchanted<\/a> by his posture toward Big Tech. Many tech leaders proceeded to pour money into Trump\u2019s campaign during the 2024 elections, and then sought closer ties to him following his victory.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Mike Brock, a former executive at Block who now writes the political Substack Notes from the Circus<\/a>, says that before the election, \u201cthe entirety of the managerial class of Silicon Valley well understood that if Donald Trump won, that there was going to need to be a kneeling.\u201d He adds that in the past year, tech workers have stopped speaking out because \u201cthey understand they\u2019ll lose their job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, many stories were written about Silicon Valley\u2019s rightward shift<\/a>, as exemplified by leaders like Marc Andreessen and Elon Musk. But Warden contends that many of the actual workers in the Bay retained their left-leaning politics. \u201cI hear from a lot of people in private that they’re appalled by what’s happening, but unlike Trump One, they don’t feel like they have the safety or security to be able to speak out,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, tech tools have become increasingly central to Trump\u2019s approach to overhauling parts of the federal bureaucracy via the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), targeting undocumented migrants, and developing weapons of war. ICE deploys AI <\/a>and facial recognition to surveil those without legal status and to monitor public speech. AWS (Amazon Web Services) provides ICE <\/a>with data storage services. In October, Apple and Google removed apps<\/a> that alerted people when ICE agents were nearby following pressure from Attorney General Pam Bondi. And last week, ICE asked<\/a> tech companies to provide information about \u201ccommercial Big Data and Ad Tech\u201d products that would \u201cdirectly support investigations activities.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Deaths in Minneapolis Spark Outrage<\/h2>\n

But video footage of the deaths of Good and Pretti\u2014which appeared to directly contradict<\/a> the accounts of federal officials\u2014compelled some tech leaders to publicly speak up. On Saturday, Reid Hoffman<\/a> wrote on X<\/a> that it was \u201ctime for all Americans\u201d to stand up against ICE. Jeff Dean, chief scientist at Google DeepMind, called<\/a> Pretti\u2019s killing “absolutely shameful,\u201d while Yann LeCun commented<\/a>: \u201cmurderers.\u201d <\/p>\n

Warden says that the outcry from leaders gave cover to tech employees, and that he has spoken with several colleagues who have not yet signed the letter but say they plan to. \u201cIt hasn’t been possible to talk about any of this in a work setting because you were never sure if you were going to be fired,\u201d he says. \u201cBut now, seeing some of the industry leaders like Jeff Dean take a stand, I am hoping this will be the seed for a lot more actions going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson responded<\/a> to the letter by saying to The Washington Post<\/em> that \u201cICE officers act heroically\u201d and that those criticizing ICE are \u201csimply doing the bidding of criminal illegal aliens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Warden says that he fears retaliation for speaking out, especially from VCs who may not want to fund his startup, Moonshine AI. \u201cBy speaking out, I can potentially be seen as a problematic founder, which may hurt or kill my company,\u201d he says. \u201cBut compared to the risks that I see people in Minneapolis taking every day, that seems pretty small in the grand scheme of things.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/strong> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… Trump administration, many Big Tech<\/span> employees responded with outrage … his posture toward Big Tech<\/span>. Many tech<\/span> leaders proceeded to … ,\u00e2\u0080\u009d he says. Meanwhile, tech<\/span> tools have become increasingly central … Big Data and Ad Tech<\/span>\u00e2\u0080\u009d products that would \u00e2\u0080\u009cdirectly …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66682\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}