Keep your head down. Compartmentalize. Don’t make trouble.
That’s what many tech workers are taking their CEOs’ strategic silence to mean, amid an immigration crackdown across the US by the Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security. Widespread violence by federal agents has sparked protests in Minneapolis and across the country. One month after an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, and two weeks after Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, the majority of tech CEOs have remained tight-lipped. Internally, workers from several companies describe a culture of silence and fear — and trepidation over what kind of future they’re helping to build.
The Verge spoke with tech workers at giants like Microsoft, YouTube, and Google, as well as tech companies in specific industries, like biometric verification firm CLEAR and medical device / healthcare company Abbott. Most described the same feeling of being told to stick to the corporate mission, whether outright or not, and feeling fearful for their jobs if they were to stick a toe out of line. Microsoft, Google, and Abbott did not provide a comment. CLEAR’s chief privacy officer, Lynn Haaland, told The Verge in a statement, “We do not work with ICE and never have, full stop.”
Many also described an eerie lack of acknowledgment in town hall meetings and public messaging from their companies. Internal forums and messaging platforms at the companies were also often devoid of mentions, besides a number of posts viewed by The Verge on Microsoft’s internal forum, Viva Engage. Some of the posts in a political discussion channel mentioned the intensifying protests in Minneapolis, ICE’s actions and victims, and Donald Trump’s administration. Posts in a different channel asked for actionable guidance on what to do in case of ICE detention and which documents the company recommends people perpetually carry on their person.
“The dissent I’ve seen is like a whisper,” said one employee who works on Azure at Microsoft, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, adding that people are afraid to speak out publicly and not sure who to trust internally. “It’s a fear-based culture right now.”
Although federal agents have killed at least eight people so far in 2026 and public protests are intensifying, chief executives at companies like Google, Meta, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, AWS, and OpenAI have stayed radio silent in terms of public statements. Privately, Apple CEO Tim Cook and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reportedly sent internal memos to staff about the situation, both calling for deescalation and expressing their beliefs that President Trump would rise to the occasion. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei briefly spoke publicly, mentioning in a NBC interview that the company does not have contracts with ICE, and he posted on X about “the horror we’re seeing in Minnesota” and “the importance of preserving democratic values and rights at home.”
It’s a far cry from resistance efforts in Big Tech years back. In 2018, Microsoft workers presented leadership with a petition protesting the company’s ICE contracts, signed by about 500 Microsoft employees. That same year, thousands of Google workers successfully protested the company’s “Project Maven” partnership with the Pentagon, including about 4,000 Googler signatures on a petition. Tech companies’ responses (or lack thereof) to ICE’s recent actions are also a significant departure from their statements in 2018, and from their statements and financial commitments to the Black Lives Matter movement after George Floyd’s murder in 2020.
Meanwhile, most tech leaders have attempted to ingratiate themselves with Trump since he resumed office, donating to his inauguration fund or the main pro-Trump super PAC, dining with him at the White House, and putting out public statements praising the administration’s views on tech and AI. Many of them have also significantly increased their collaborations with the government, either putting out products specifically designed for use by military, defense, and intelligence agencies — like Anthropic’s Claude Gov or OpenAI’s ChatGPT Gov — or continuing or expanding their contracts with DHS, ICE, and other agencies focused on the immigration crackdown, such as Palantir. A grassroots movement aiming to send a signal to the Trump administration over anti-immigrant actions calls for consumers to boycott Microsoft, Amazon, OpenAI, and more.
An employee at YouTube, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, said, “I am personally frustrated that companies have cozied up to Trump, told their workers to just kind of shut up and focus on the mission, and not make any distinctions about what the company actually stands for at this moment in time. Are you on the side of democracy? Are you on the side of terrorizing our populace? Are you on the side of ripping people from their families, arbitrary deportations, arbitrary detentions, multiple deaths at the hands of ICE now? Are you in favor of that? Where do you stand?”
A recent petition signed by more than 1,000 Google employees dictates demands for leadership to acknowledge and “publicly call for urgent government responses to this crisis,” for the company to host an “emergency Q&A session for workers” regarding Google’s DHS, CBP, and military contracts, and to take steps to protect workers, whether they be cafeteria workers or data center employees.
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