Minneapolis, January 15, 2026
Tech Industry Faces Internal Pressure After ICE Shooting
Table of Contents
Growing dissent among tech workers challenges corporate silence following the death of Renee Nicole Good.
- Since returning to office last January, tech CEOs largely aligned with the current administration, seeking favorable policies.
- The shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent sparked public outcry from tech researchers and engineers.
- Over 150 tech workers have signed a petition demanding corporate leaders condemn ICE’s actions.
- Prominent figures at Google and Anthropic have publicly denounced the killing as immoral.
The uneasy truce between Silicon Valley and the current administration is showing cracks, triggered by the shooting of Renee Nicole Good, an unarmed U.S. citizen, by an ICE agent in broad daylight in Minneapolis last week. For months, major tech companies have largely prioritized access and influence, attending dinners with officials and seeking permission to sell products to China, even as the administration pursued policies impacting chip exports and worker visas.
Growing Dissent Within Tech Companies
The shooting has prompted a wave of internal criticism, with researchers at Google and Anthropic leading the charge. They have denounced the killing as callous and immoral, breaking with the silence maintained by many top-level executives. More than 150 tech workers have signed a petition calling on their CEOs to publicly condemn the actions of ICE and demand the agency’s withdrawal from U.S. cities.
Anne Diemer, a human resources consultant and former Stripe employee who organized the petition, stated that employees at Meta, Google, Amazon, OpenAI, TikTok, Spotify, Salesforce, LinkedIn, and Rippling are among the signatories. The group intends to release the full list once it reaches 200 names. “I think so many tech folks have felt like they can’t speak up,” Diemer said. “I want tech leaders to call the country’s leaders and condemn ICE’s actions, but even if this helps people find their people and take a small part in fighting fascism, then that’s cool, too.”
Nikhil Thorat, an engineer at Anthropic, expressed his outrage in a post on X, stating that Good’s killing “stirred something” within him. “A mother was gunned down in the street by ICE, and the government doesn’t even have the decency to perform a scripted condolence,” he wrote. Thorat further argued that the moral foundation of society is “infected, and is festering,” drawing a parallel to Nazi Germany and the dangers of remaining silent in the face of injustice.
Jonathan Frankle, chief AI scientist at Databricks, echoed Thorat’s sentiments with a “+1” reply. Shrisha Radhakrishna, chief technology and chief product officer of Opendoor, responded that the incident was “not normal. It’s immoral. The speed at which the administration is moving to dehumanize a mother is terrifying.” Employees identifying themselves as working at OpenAI and Anthropic also voiced their support for Thorat’s statement.
High-Profile Tech Leaders Weigh In
Jeff Dean, a University of Minnesota graduate and now chief scientist at Google DeepMind and Google Research, began sharing posts criticizing the administration’s immigration policies on X shortly after the shooting. He shared content outlining circumstances where deadly force is not justified when interacting with moving vehicles. On January 10, Dean posted, “This is completely not okay, and we can’t become numb to repeated instances of illegal and unconstitutional action by government agencies. The recent days have been horrific.” He also linked to a video showing the violent arrest of a U.S. citizen teenager at a Target in Richfield, Minnesota.
The debate extended to a direct response to a post by U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who asserted that Good was attempting to run over the ICE agent with her vehicle. Aaron Levie, CEO of Box, challenged this claim, questioning the agent’s actions: “Why is he shooting after he’s fully out of harm’s way (2nd and 3rd shot)? Why doesn’t he just move away from the vehicle instead of standing in front of it?” Levie included a link to a Justice Department web page detailing best practices for law enforcement interactions with suspects in vehicles.
