A little over a month ago, tech industry leaders met with then-President-elect Donald Trump to discuss ways of working together. Over the weekend, however, several top Silicon Valley executives criticized the White House for an executive order that temporarily bars people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S.
The executive order signed by Trump on Friday set off a weekend of air travel chaos, large public protests and rapid responses by attorneys seeking to help green card holders and other travelers who were detained at airports across the country. It also created new challenges for a tech industry that’s led by many immigrants and employs many professionals from overseas.
As of this morning, tech leaders who had made public statements critical of the executive order included Google CEO Sundar Pichai (pictured above), Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Lyft co-founders Logan Green and John Zimmer, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, both of whom are members of Trump’s business advisory council, said they planned to raise the issue with other council members and discuss their concerns with the president.
Impact Is ‘Real and Upsetting’
“It’s painful to see the personal cost of this executive order on our colleagues,” Google’s Pichai, who came to the U.S. from India, wrote in a memo to employees, according to a Bloomberg report. “We’ve always made our view on immigration issues known publicly and will continue to do so.”
Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who was born in the former Soviet Union, went to San Francisco International Airport on Saturday to join other protestors against the travel ban.
“The Executive Order’s humanitarian and economic impact is real and upsetting,” Twitter’s Dorsey said Saturday in a tweet. “We benefit from what refugees and immigrants…