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(L-R) Amazon's chief Jeff Bezos, Larry Page of Alphabet, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Vice President elect Mike Pence, President-elect Donald Trump, Peter Thiel, co-founder and former CEO of PayPal, Tim Cook of Apple and Safra Catz of Oracle attend a meeting at Trump Tower December 14, 2016 in New York.
Timothy A. Clary / AFP / Getty Images
On Friday, President Trump signed an executive ordered temporarily halting the US refugee program for 120 days. The order has indefinitely suspended the intake of refugees from Syria and has blocked all people from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, and Yemen from entering the US for 90 days. Reuters reports that the order affects those with green cards as well — meaning that permanent residents of the United States of America from these countries currently abroad may not be allowed to return to the country or travel outside the United States.
In the run-up to the election and now-President Trump's win, Silicon Valley's leaders frequently positioned themselves with their rhetoric as 2016's new statesmen and were occasionally outspoken against Trump as a candidate. During his transition, many of Big Tech's most prominent leaders met with Trump to discuss his economic agenda. Here's how Silicon Valley, and some of the world's biggest global technology companies, are reacting to the news of Trump's measures against refugees and travellers from several Muslim-majority countries.
A source at Google told BuzzFeed News that “just under 200 people at Google affected” by Trump's executive order “but people across the company are freaking out.” The source said that employees have emailed managers, suggesting that “if their colleagues affected by the order cannot travel for conferences or work events then they will refuse to travel in solidarity. “A lot of people are talking this weekend. Emails were flying around Friday,” the source said.
Meanwhile, Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote a memo to staff about the ban, which was obtained by Bloomberg.
“It’s painful to see the personal cost of this executive order on our colleagues,” Pichai wrote. “We’ve always made our view on immigration issues known publicly and will continue to do so.”
“We’re concerned about the impact of this order and any proposals that could impose restrictions on Googlers and their families, or that could create barriers to bringing great talent to the US. We'll continue to make our views on these issues known to leaders in Washington and elsewhere.”
“We share the concerns about the impact of the executive order on our employees from the listed countries, all of whom have been in the United States lawfully, and we’re actively working with them to provide legal advice and assistance.”
Zuckerberg's post, while one of the first from tech executives has been criticized for not being more direct.
On Twitter, tech investors and Silicon Valley personas are speaking out, some of them strongly. Prominent Twitter and Uber investor, Chris Sacca tweeted this:
Apple, Intel, Hewlett-Packard have not yet responded to requests for comment
Additional reporting by Priya Anand, John Paczkowski, and Mat Honan.
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