What tech executives and managers are saying 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 to date, federal agents killed at least eight people, including at least two American citizens in Minneapolis – Renee Good and Alex Pretti. As immigration enforcement has escalated — even arresting school children seeking legal asylum — tech workers have called on their leaders to speak out.

The technology industry has always been politicized. Companies such as Palantir, Clearview AI, Flock, and Paragon are contracted by US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and are assisting in the agency’s crackdown. But since President Trump took office last year, his industry connections have grown. Elon Musk ran the government agency for months, and Silicon Valley billionaire David Sacks heads the president’s technology advisory board. The CEOs behind some of the biggest companies in the country – such as Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, Tim Cook of Apple, and Sundar Pichai of Google – had prime seats at Trump’s inauguration and are in constant contact with him.

“We know our industry leaders are strong: in October, they lobbied Trump to cancel a planned ICE operation in San Francisco,” ICEout.tech, a group of tech industry workers opposed to ICE, wrote in a statement on January 24, the day of the death of ICU nurse Alex Pretti. “The White House’s chief technology officers tonight,” the statement said, referring to a screening of a documentary about Melania Trump that Cook, Amazon’s Andy Jassy and Zoom’s Eric Yuan were in attendance. “Now they need to step forward, and join us in looking for ICE in all of our cities.”

Some of the biggest tech players have since spoken out, to mixed reception from their employees and the industry. Below, we keep a running list of what tech leaders have said.

Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn

LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, a major donor to the Democratic Alliance, published an article in the San Francisco Standard on January 29, asking Silicon Valley to stop trying to be neutral after the Minnesota massacre.

“We in Silicon Valley cannot bend the knee to Trump,” Hoffman wrote. “We cannot stand back and hope this problem will go away. We now know that hope without action is not a strategy – it is an invitation for Trump to trample on anything he sees, including business and security.”

He said he was encouraged to see so many tech leaders speaking out, saying: “It’s a great start to something America needs so much more of right now.”

“Any candidates you may have supported in the past – or even if (like many of my friends in Silicon Valley) you don’t usually do politics – you probably didn’t want to this,” he wrote.

Sam Altman, CEO at OpenAI

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

In the days following Pretti’s death, Altman spoke to OpenAI employees via an internal Slack message, which was reported by the New York Times.

“What’s happening with ICE is going too far. There’s a big difference between deporting violent criminals and what’s happening now, and we need to address the difference,” he said. “President Trump is a very strong leader, and I hope he will rise to the occasion and unite the country.”

Altman added, “We didn’t really wake up when that was popular, we didn’t start talking about male corporate power when that was popular, and we’re not going to be making a lot of statements now about safety or politics or anything else. But we’re going to continue to try to figure out how to do the right thing as best we can.”

Dario Amodei, CEO at Anthropic

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

First, Amodei confirmed that Anthropic does not have contracts with ICE, despite its relationship with the Department of Defense, and emphasized his concern about “the need to protect democracy against autocracies” such as China and Russia.

“I believe very much, carefully, cautiously, to arm the democracy to protect these countries,” said Amodei, adding that these principles persist in the internal American politics.

“We need to be careful to ensure that democracy is worth protecting. We need to protect our democratic principles at home,” he said. “I believe some of the things we’ve seen in the last few days worry me about that.”

He also addressed the ICE raid in Minneapolis in a post on X, where he talked about the “horror we’re seeing in Minnesota.”

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple

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

“This is a time of decline,” Cook said. He later added, “I had a great conversation with the president this week where I shared my views, and I appreciate his willingness to share on issues that are important to all of us.”

Meredith Whittaker, president of Signal

As the tech industry behind ICEout.tech, Signal President Meredith Whittaker has been vocal about the role tech leaders have in social justice.

“I want everyone in technology who has ever talked about freedom, or their love of privacy, or their commitment to freedom, to join me in unwavering condemnation,” Whittaker wrote in X.

In one post, he said, “America’s masked workers are killing people in the streets and powerful leaders are openly lying to cover them up. To everyone in my industry who has ever said they value freedom – use the courage of your convictions and stand up.”

As an edge-to-edge messaging app, Signal is often used by activists to organize public actions.

Tony Stubblebine, CEO at Medium

The leader of the online publishing platform Medium, Tony Stubblebine posted screenshots in Threads of a message he shared with workers in which he explained his rationale for allowing workers to participate in a national strike if they wanted to, although he clarified that he is “not in the business of ruling people’s politics.”

“I started the week in my head and heart with what I saw in Minneapolis and I really struggled with the idea that those two murders were just a point of error,” Stubblebine wrote.

In the memo, he writes about the difficulty of navigating his role as a tech CEO during this time, saying it feels “difficult to navigate with work and money.” He added that he was thinking about “the company’s job to do.” [its] clear, especially since some tech organizations are donating to the Trump campaign and supporting the current administration’s agenda. “

Stubblebine also pointed out that Medium’s approach to its role as a web publisher reflects the company’s core values ​​— “for example, that we don’t allow things like hateful content or racist speech on Medium.”

Jeff Dean, chief scientist at Google DeepMind

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

“This is absolutely disgraceful,” Dean wrote on X, in response to the video of federal agents shooting Alex Pretti. “Agents of the federal government are growing needlessly, then murdering a defenseless citizen who is guilty of what appears to be a cell phone camera. Everyone, regardless of political party, should condemn this.”

James Dyett, head of global business for OpenAI

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

“There’s more anger from tech leaders about the wealth tax than there is about hidden ICEs harassing communities and killing citizens on the streets,” Dyett said. “It 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 publicly expressed support for ICE and the Trump administration’s actions, others at the firm have publicly opposed these views.

Rabois lashed out at X after border patrol killed ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, prompting another founder to respond that if he were the founder of Khosla Ventures, he would return the money, calling Rabois a “disgrace.”

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

Vinod Khosla, the company’s founder, echoed Choi’s message and called the joint agents “macho ICE vigilantes running amuck empowered by clueless management.”

“The video was infuriating to watch and the story telling without facts or with false facts created by the authorities is almost unthinkable in a civilized society,” wrote Khosla. “Ice workers must have ice water flowing in their veins to treat other people in this way. There is politics but humanity should get over that.”

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