In a segment on NBC News Monday night, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei expressed concern about “some of the things we’ve seen over the last few days,” citing violence by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis.
In both his NBC and X posts, Amodei focused on the importance of defending democracy at home, specifically calling out “the horrors we are seeing in Minnesota.” “We need to defend our democratic values at home,” he said on NBC, saying he believes in arming democracies to protect them from dictatorships. He added that Anthropic does not have a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Meanwhile, in an internal Slack message to OpenAI employees leaked to the New York Times, Sam Altman said, “What’s happening at ICE is going too far.”
“Part of loving our country is America’s obligation to push back against excesses,” Altman wrote. “There’s a big difference between deporting violent criminals and what’s happening now, and we need to get the distinction right.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook also wrote an email to employees, which was leaked to Bloomberg, saying he was “heartbroken by the events in Minneapolis.”
Tech workers, including employees of both companies, called the White House to demand that ICE be withdrawn from U.S. cities after Border Patrol agents killed two Americans in Minneapolis. In an open letter, tech workers called on their CEOs to terminate all corporate contracts with ICE and publicly speak out against ICE violence.
Employees who call on CEOs to take action are emboldened and want more to join their ranks.
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“I’m glad to hear the CEOs of OpenAI and Anthropic condemning ICE murder,” the ICEout.tech organizer (whose identity remains unknown) told TechCrunch (before Cook’s emails were leaked). “Now we need to hear from the CEOs of Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Meta, who have remained silent even as we call on the entire industry.”
Amodei, Altman and Cook may all have similar positions praising Trump, one publicly and the other two internally.
Cook said in an email that he had a “good conversation” with Trump and appreciated “the President’s willingness to address issues that are important to all of us.” Apple employees were reportedly angry that Cook attended an exclusive screening of a documentary about first lady Melania Trump hours after ICE shot and killed American citizen Alex Preti.
Amodei praised President Trump’s move to allow Minnesota authorities to conduct an independent investigation into the shooting by federal agents after multiple videos of Preti’s death surfaced online. It remains to be seen whether this investigation will be conducted, but there are increasing calls for one from Republican lawmakers. (Amodei’s sister, Daniela Amodei, president of Anthropic, posted on LinkedIn: “Horrified and saddened to see what happened in Minnesota. What we have witnessed over the past few days is not representative of America.”)
In a message to staff, Altman said he was encouraged by Trump’s recent actions and hoped the president, a “very strong leader,” would “rise to this moment and unite the country.”
Altman assured them that OpenAI will “actually do the right thing as best we can, and try to find ways to engage with our leaders, promote our values, and speak out about it clearly when necessary.” Mr. Altman has not yet publicly criticized the administration’s immigration policies or how it deploys Border Patrol agents in American cities.
JJ Colao, founder of PR firm Haymaker Group and one of the signatories of ICEout.tech’s letter, accused Altman of calling Trump a strong leader and trying to “play it both ways,” “as if the president is not responsible for ICE’s actions.” He added: “I think what he’s saying online is helpful, but the performative compliments of the president really undermine that.”
Of course, the Trump administration’s current pro-AI policies have helped fuel the explosive growth of companies like OpenAI and Anthropic over the past year. OpenAI has raised at least $40 billion and is in talks to raise another $100 billion at a valuation of $830 billion, while Anthropic has raised $19 billion and is in talks to raise another $25 billion at a valuation of $350 billion.
Still, such praise for Trump is a change of heart for Altman. In the run-up to President Trump’s first term in office in 2016, Altman posted the following on his blog:
“[Trump]is not just irresponsible; he is as irresponsible as any dictator could be…For anyone familiar with the history of Germany in the 1930s, watching Trump’s actions is appalling.”
At the time, he called Trump a “demagogic hate monger” who was trying to peddle the lie that “protecting us from foreigners makes America great” to distract from the fact that “there is no real plan to restore economic growth.” Altman acknowledged that he took some risks by writing his post, and ended with a quote attributed to Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
“Now would be a good time for all of us, especially Republicans, especially Republican politicians who previously supported Mr. Trump, to start speaking out,” he wrote.
And Amodei also appears to be even more passionate about his opposition to President Trump allowing Nvidia to sell AI chips to China, calling the decision “crazy” at last week’s World Economic Forum and likening it to “selling nuclear weapons to North Korea and[bragging]that Boeing made the casing for it.”
It remains to be seen whether these CEOs are doing everything some of their employees want them to do. Still, given what’s at stake for the company, even mild internal criticism is noteworthy.
Spokespeople for Anthropic and OpenAI confirmed that neither company has contracts with ICE, but did not respond to TechCrunch’s requests for more information. TechCrunch has reached out to Apple.
This article has been updated to include comments from JJ Colao and leaked emails from Tim Cook.
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