By Stephen Council, Tech Reporter Jan 26, 2026 (SFGate.com)
FILE: President Donald Trump (right) speaks to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg during a dinner in the White House, Sept. 4, 2025, in Washington. Meta’s social media platforms have hosted many ads for the Department of Homeland Security.Alex Brandon/AP
Several prominent Bay Area tech CEOs spent the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term buddying up with the administration. But the violence from Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Minneapolis this month is prompting a backlash from workers inside the industry — and CEOs are a primary target.
Even before federal officers killed 37-year-old Alex Pretti on video in Minneapolis on Saturday, current and former tech workers were circulating a petition protesting ICE and demanding that tech CEOs use their clout against the agency. As of Monday morning, more than 400 had signed the petition, including workers from the likes of Google, Meta, OpenAI, Intel, Salesforce, Adobe and Amazon.
The petition asks CEOs to cancel any contracts with ICE, speak out against the agency’s violence and demand that the Trump administration pull officers from cities. Drafted by AnnE Diemer, a consultant and former Stripe employee in San Francisco, the petition also points to Trump’s calling off a “surge” of officers to San Francisco in October after speaking with Mayor Daniel Lurie, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff.
“We know the tech industry can make a difference,” the petition reads. “When Trump threatened to send the national guard to San Francisco in October, tech industry leaders called the White House. It worked: Trump backed down.”
The petition continues: “We want to be proud to work in tech. We want to be proud of the companies we work for. We can and must use our leverage to end this violence.”
Pretti’s death was the second instance of federal officers gunning down a protester this month in Minneapolis, where thousands of ICE officers and Border Patrol agents were deployed for anti-immigrant raids. Trump officials attempted to justify Pretti’s killing — White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called Pretti a “domestic terrorist” who “tried to assassinate federal law enforcement” — even as video debunked their statements about the shooting and a wave of widespread outrage amassed online.
Tech leaders like Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Apple’s Tim Cook — who have met with Trump in Washington this year, donated to his inauguration fund and expressed appreciation for his work — stayed characteristically silent about the administration’s more controversial actions on social media. But though the worker petition represents a tiny fraction of the tech community, it and statements from other industry figures show that pressure is mounting on executives to use their sway for good.
Chris Olah, an Anthropic co-founder, wrote on X that he tries not to talk about politics, but Pretti’s killing had cleared his high bar: “Recent events – a federal agent killing an ICU nurse for seemingly no reason and with no provocation – shock the conscience.” Jeff Dean, the chief scientist of the artificial intelligence team Google Deepmind, called the killing “absolutely shameful,” and added, “Every person regardless of political affiliation should be denouncing this.” Dean also praised an open letter from Minnesota CEOs asking for a de-escalation.
The shooting has also prompted some disagreements within companies. Ethan Choi, a partner at the Menlo Park investing firm Khosla Ventures, pushed back on a colleague’s defense of ICE, writing, “I want to make it clear that Keith [Rabois, a director,] doesn’t represent everyone’s views here at @khoslaventures, at least not mine. What happened in Minnesota is plain wrong.” Founder Vinod Khosla backed up Choi.
Huang and Benioff, when they called Trump to dissuade the San Francisco surge, showed a willingness to counter ICE’s sweeping incursions on American cities. The workers’ petition asks for many more such calls from top execs. The ask for an end to ICE contracts has a narrower focus; the software company Palantir is working closely with the agency, but other companies and executives have dodged the work. Still, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services each contracted with ICE in the past, Meta hosts pro-ICE ads from the Department of Homeland Security, and Salesforce pitched the agency on its products last year.
The petition ends with a request for more ideas: “What else can tech employees do to push back against fascism in the U.S.? We want to help make it happen.”
Work at a Bay Area tech company and want to talk? Contact tech reporter Stephen Council securely at stephen.council@sfgate.com or on Signal at 628-204-5452.
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Jan 26, 2026
Tech Reporter
Stephen Council is the tech reporter at SFGATE. He has covered technology and business for The Information, The Wall Street Journal, CNBC and CalMatters, where his reporting won a San Francisco Press Club award.
Signal: 628-204-5452
Email: stephen.council@sfgate.com
