Reid Hoffman urges tech leaders to stop pacifying President Trump

Billionaire tech mogul Reid Hoffman is urging Silicon Valley leaders to stop pacifying President Trump and to take a public stand. Hoffman argues that failing to act against the killings of two American citizens at the hands of Border Patrol agents is a strategic error. According to Hoffman, “We in Silicon Valley can’t bend the knee to Trump. We can’t shrink away and hope the crisis fades. Hope without action is not a strategy –– it’s an invitation for Trump to trample whatever he can see, including our own business and security interests.”

The call to action highlights a growing division within the tech sector. While some prominent figures have taken a sharp stance—such as billionaire venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, who characterized the White House as a conscious-less administration—others have taken a more guarded approach. Executives including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei have expressed concern over the Border Patrol incidents, but they have sought to distance their concerns from the president himself. Many tech leaders appear to be, at least publicly, walking the fence. For instance, Cook wrote in an internal memo that he was heartbroken and urged de-escalation, yet he attended a screening of First Lady Melania Trump’s documentary hours after the ICE shooting of Alex Pretti, one of the American citizens killed in the incidents.

This political tension is also rising from within tech companies. A growing contingent of tech workers has signed a petition demanding that CEOs call the White House to demand that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) leave U.S. cities. The petition also demands that companies cancel their contracts with the agency and speak out publicly against ICE’s violence. This internal pressure highlights the conflict between the industry’s reliance on U.S. government business and its political obligations. This reliance was highlighted in November during an incident involving an OpenAI CFO comment regarding a federal backstop for loans. Hoffman argues that tech leaders possess significant power, and choosing not to use it is not neutrality, but a choice that is bad for business. While some tech leaders, such as Elon Musk and Keith Rabois of Khosla Ventures, remain vocal supporters of Trump, the broader industry faces mounting pressure to abandon its quiet stance.

Why it matters

The tech industry is being forced to choose between its reliance on federal contracts and its political neutrality, as high-profile incidents make fence-walking increasingly untenable for tech CEOs.