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Billionaire tech mogul Reid Hoffman is urging his fellow tech moguls in Silicon Valley<\/a> to not just condemn the killings of two American citizens at the hands of Border Patrol agents, but to stop pacifying President Trump.<\/p>\n In posts on X and an opinion column penned<\/a> for The San Francisco Standard, Hoffman writes: \u201cWe in Silicon Valley can\u2019t bend the knee to Trump. We can\u2019t shrink away and hope the crisis fades. Hope without action is not a strategy \u2013\u2013\u00a0 it\u2019s an invitation for Trump to trample whatever he can see, including our own business and security interests.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s been some pushback among the most powerful in the Valley against these deaths. Besides Hoffman, a longtime critic of Trump, billionaire VC Vinod Khosla has been the most vocal<\/a>, characterizing the White House and crew as \u201ca conscious-less administration.\u201d<\/p>\n OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei have also expressed concern over the Border Patrol incidents<\/a>, with some doing so in leaked internal memos. But most of them were quick to distance their concerns over this issue from the president himself.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the distinction that Hoffman wants to end. He\u2019s making the case that tech leaders have power \u201cand sitting on that power is not good for business. It\u2019s also not neutrality. It\u2019s a choice.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, many of the largest tech companies depend on the federal government for business, including AI regulation, tariffs that affect the costs of their products, and massive, lucrative contracts to supply the U.S. government with technology. (OpenAI even got in a bit of hot water in November after its CFO said, and later walked back, that the company wanted the feds to backstop their loans<\/a>, essentially guaranteeing payment so the AI lab could get more favorable rates.)<\/p>\n Hoffman is echoing the sentiment of a growing contingent of tech workers, who have signed a petition<\/a> asking their CEOs to call the White House and demand that ICE leave U.S. cities, to cancel all company contracts with ICE<\/a>, and to speak out publicly against ICE\u2019s violence.<\/p>\n Techcrunch event<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBoston, MA<\/span> While there certainly are tech leaders who remain vocal supporters of Trump, like Elon Musk and Keith Rabois of Khosla Ventures, many leaders appear to be, at least publicly, walking the fence. Cook, for instance, wrote that he was \u201cheartbroken\u201d and urged \u201cde-escalation\u201d in his internal memo, but also attended<\/a>\u00a0an exclusive screening of First Lady Melania Trump\u2019s documentary hours after the ICE shooting of Alex Pretti, one of the Americans killed in the incidents. Hence Hoffman\u2019s call to arms.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJune 23, 2026<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n