Tech Opposition to Trump Propelled by Employees, Not Executives

The New York Times reports:

After President Trump’s Jan. 27 executive order restricting immigration, high-tech has gone full-tilt political. Companies are being pushed by their employees, by their customers and sometimes by their ideals. They are trying to go far enough without going too far.

Nearly 130 companies, most of them in the technology field, filed an amicus brief late Sunday in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which declined to reinstate the travel ban after a lower court blocked it. The brief, which was signed by an unusually broad coalition of large and small tech companies that included Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Tesla, Uber and Intel, said Mr. Trump’s order “violates the immigration laws and the Constitution.”

“Silicon Valley is stepping up,” said Sam Altman, who runs the valley’s most prominent start-up incubator, Y Combinator. “The companies are working on three fronts: They are vociferously objecting to the Trump policies they think are bad, they are trying to engage with him to influence his behavior, and they are developing new technology to work against policies and political discourse they don’t support.”


It is an improvised and complicated strategy. The companies are among the richest and most popular of American brands, which means they have a good deal of leverage. Yet they are also uniquely vulnerable — not only to presidential postings on Twitter and executive orders, but to the sentiments of their customers and employees, some of whom have more radical ideas in mind.

Some people think America shouldn't have any borders.