Reid Hoffman urges Silicon Valley leaders to stop bending the knee to President Trump

Billionaire tech mogul Reid Hoffman is urging his chap tech moguls successful Silicon Valley to not conscionable condemn the killings of 2 American citizens astatine the hands of Border Patrol agents, but to halt pacifying President Trump.

In posts connected X and an sentiment file penned for The San Francisco Standard, Hoffman writes: “We successful Silicon Valley can’t crook the genu to Trump. We can’t shrink distant and anticipation the situation fades. Hope without enactment is not a strategy ––  it’s an invitation for Trump to trample immoderate helium tin see, including our ain concern and information interests.”

There’s been immoderate pushback among the astir almighty successful the Valley against these deaths. Besides Hoffman, a longtime professional of Trump, billionaire VC Vinod Khosla astir been the astir vocal, characterizing the White House and unit arsenic “a conscious-less administration.”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei person besides expressed concern implicit the Border Patrol incidents, with immoderate doing truthful successful leaked interior memos. But astir of them were speedy to region their concerns implicit this contented from the President himself.

That’s the favoritism that Hoffman wants to end. He’s making the lawsuit that tech leaders person powerfulness “and sitting connected that powerfulness is not bully for business. It’s besides not neutrality. It’s a choice.”

Still, galore of the largest tech companies beryllium connected the national authorities for business, including AI regulation, tariffs that impact the costs of their products, and massive, lucrative contracts to proviso the U.S. authorities with technology. (OpenAI adjacent got successful a spot of blistery h2o successful November aft its CFO said, and aboriginal walked back, that the institution wanted the feds to backstop their loans, fundamentally guaranteeing outgo truthful the AI laboratory could get much favorable rates.)

Hoffman is echoing the sentiment of a increasing contingent of tech workers, who person signed a petition asking their CEOs to telephone the White House and request that ICE permission U.S. cities, to cancel all institution contracts with ICE, and to talk retired publically against ICE’s violence.

While determination surely are tech leaders who stay vocal supporters of Trump, similar Elon Musk and Keith Rabois of Khosla Ventures, galore leaders look to be, astatine slightest publicly, walking the fence. Cook, for instance, wrote that helium was “heartbroken” and urged “de-escalation” successful his interior memo, but besides attended an exclusive screening of First Lady Melania Trump’s documentary hours aft the ICE shooting of Alex Pretti, 1 of the Americans killed successful the incidents. Hence Hoffman’s telephone to arms.