London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Oct 23, 2026

As Trump Expands His Travel Ban, Amazon, Apple And Google Are Silent

As Trump Expands His Travel Ban, Amazon, Apple And Google Are Silent

In January 2017, when the Trump administration first unveiled a travel ban targeting seven majority Muslim countries, the tech industry took up arms. This time around there's mainly been silence.

In January 2017, when the Trump administration first unveiled a travel ban targeting seven majority Muslim countries, the tech industry took up arms. CEOs wrote impassioned letters, a billionaire founder showed up to an airport protest, and multiple companies lent their voices to lawsuits challenging the policy.

Last week, however, following the announcement of immigration restrictions on six additional countries, the reaction could not have been more different. Silicon Valley largely fell silent.

On Friday, the Trump administration said it would be barring immigrant visas for individuals from Nigeria, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, and Eritrea, while also suspending diversity visas -which grant green cards to people from countries with low levels of immigration to the US -for Sudan and Tanzania. The changes, which go into effect on Feb. 22, are expected to affect as many as 12,400 visa applicants and were put in place because the countries failed to meet minimal security and information-sharing standards, according to officials.

As the tech industry has warmed to the Trump administration -with CEOs hosting photo ops with the president or attending secret dinners at the White House -its leaders’ responses to the ban extension have varied dramatically from 2017. There were no tweets. No all-hands memos or meetings. No forceful statements on Facebook. No threats of legal action.

Historically, the tech industry has made immigration one of its leading political causes. Companies including Apple, Amazon, and Google were cofounded by immigrants or the children of immigrants, while startups to trillion-dollar goliaths rely on worker visas to stock their ranks. In January 2017, when asked why he was attending a protest of President Trump’s policy at the San Francisco International Airport, Google cofounder Sergey Brin gave a simple response: “I’m here because I’m a refugee.”

This time around, Google, whose CEO, Sundar Pichai, hails from India, did not respond to a request for comment. Late last year, BuzzFeed News reported that the company hired a former Department of Homeland Security official who had publicly defended a version of the travel ban for the administration and later worked on the policy of family separation at the southern border.

Amazon, whose CEO, Jeff Bezos, was raised by a Cuban immigrant, declined to comment. Apple did not respond to a request for comment. One company said there was no need to issue a statement because the ban was “more limited in scope” and had not impacted its employees.

“As we have said regarding earlier efforts to limit immigration on a country-specific basis, we believe that as a nation of immigrants we all benefit from welcoming people from around the world to live here, work here, and contribute to our society,” a Facebook spokesperson told BuzzFeed News on Monday. They also pointed to a 2017 post by CEO Mark Zuckerberg in which he noted his concern with “the recent executive orders signed by President Trump.” The issue of immigration was “personal for me,” Zuckerberg said then, because of his Polish, Austrian, and German heritage.

While Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has not tweeted in opposition to the new policy, as he did in 2017, a company spokesperson noted that the company depended on “an international, vibrant workforce.” Late last year, Dorsey visited Nigeria and said that he wanted to live in Africa in the future.

“We believe decisions such as this have the potential to harm US competitiveness and credibility on the global stage,” the Twitter spokesperson told BuzzFeed News on Monday.

Microsoft, which had no employees affected by the recent travel ban extension, responded on Monday after questions from BuzzFeed News.

“While our country must ensure security for its citizens and residents, we’re concerned when immigration policies create restrictions for entire countries,” a company spokesperson said. “We need to make sure our nation remains a magnet for the world's best and brightest.”

A few companies issued statements immediately after the Trump administration’s announcement, among them Postmates CEO Bastian Lehmann, who said on Friday that the “news of an expanded travel ban by an the Administration that prioritizes borders over creed is a shameful overeach of bigotry and elevates the Muslim Ban to new heights of hate.”

“Given Airbnb’s very purpose is to facilitate people to people belonging, as a company and a community, we objected to the original travel ban and continue to believe such policies are in opposition to our purpose,” Airbnb wrote on a company blog last Friday. “We believe that you should be able to travel to, and live in any community around the world, regardless of your race, religion or ethnicity – that the power to travel makes us all better.”

Those statements were the exception. Other companies that did not respond to BuzzFeed News’ request for comment on the travel ban included Salesforce -whose CEO, Marc Benioff, recently spent part of January hobnobbing with Ivanka Trump in Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum. Spokespeople for Tesla and SpaceX, both led by Elon Musk, an immigrant from South Africa, also did not respond.


Following the publication of this story, ride-sharing company Lyft said, "The recent expansion of the immigration ban is antithetical to Lyft's values." A spokesperson for its competitor Uber noted that "policies such as these move us all in the wrong direction."

Friday’s announcement came within a week of the three-year anniversary of the original travel ban, which has partly survived legal challenges to place restrictions on people from Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen.

BuzzFeed News previously reported on a draft of the latest presidential proclamation, which detailed how the administration conducted reviews of the “identity management” and security protocols for 200 countries that led to its decision.

Postmates' Lehmann, who is from Germany, fundamentally disagreed with that move. “As an immigrant myself, I know turning our backs on the values and countries that our citizens & neighbors hail from, runs counter to America and risks undermining our competitive prosperity," he said.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Government Injects One Hundred and Forty Million Pounds to Expand Urgent Care Ahead of Winter Crisis
Department of Health Warns Further Pay Rises Will Derail National Health Service Waiting List Targets
Major Environmental Emergency Declared in South Wales Following Aerospace Kerosene Spill
Tank Barrel Production Returns to Britain as Defence Contractors Accelerate Domestic Rearmament
Government Approves Controversial Jackdaw Gasfield Development in the North Sea
National Health Service Maternity Safety Review Condemned Over Flawed Artificial Intelligence Integration
Dozens of United Kingdom Government Services Taken Offline Amid Critical Software Vulnerability
Barclays Announces Five Thousand Job Cuts Citing Artificial Intelligence Productivity Gains
Treasury Relaxes Post-Financial Crisis Accountability Rules for City of London Executives
United Kingdom Government Issues Unprecedented Guidance Urging Citizens to Stockpile Essential Supplies
United Kingdom Consumer Inflation Accelerates to Eleven-Month High Driven by Transport Costs
United Kingdom Public Sector Net Debt Breaches Three Trillion Pounds Ahead of Autumn Budget
Department for Science, Innovation and Technology Commits Fifty Million Pounds to Establish Regional Artificial Intelligence Innovation Clusters
Ofgem Directs Major Energy Suppliers to Expand Vulnerable Household Support Funds Ahead of Winter Heating Season
Home Office and National Police Chiefs Council Unveil New Intelligence-Led Strategy to Tackle Organised Immigration Crime Networks
First Minister John Swinney Secures Scottish Parliament Approval for Comprehensive Climate and Green Energy Infrastructure Strategy
National Health Service England and Trades Union Congress Finalize Agreement on Emergency Winter Staffing and Pay Frameworks
HM Treasury and Department for Business and Trade Announce Multi-Billion-Pound Sovereign Investment Pact to Spur Regional Advanced Manufacturing
Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey Signals Potential for Faster Interest Rate Cuts as Domestic Inflation Pressures Ease Below Forecasts
Parliamentary Inquiry Highlights Urgent Need to Address Housing Shortage as Scottish Completions Hit Eleven-Year Low
United Kingdom and Singapore Sign Comprehensive Financial Agreement to Deepen Digital and Sustainable Market Ties
Greggs Announces Plan to Close Four Manufacturing Facilities and Cut Seven Hundred and Forty Jobs
International Monetary Fund Raises United Kingdom Economic Growth Forecast While Warning of Inflationary Pressures
Energy Security and Net Zero Committee Urges Government to Shift Policy Costs Onto Gas to Lower Household Bills
Housebuilding Across Scotland Plummets to Eleven-Year Low Despite Government Pledges to Tackle National Housing Emergency
Greggs Announces Factory Closures Across Northern England and Scotland Affecting Seven Hundred Forty Jobs
United Kingdom and Singapore Conclude Eleventh Financial Dialogue in Singapore to Deepen Cooperation on Digital Finance and Capital Markets
Energy Security and Net Zero Committee Urges Government to Shift Policy Costs to Gas Bills and Tap Windfall Profits to Lower Consumer Prices
British Broadcasting Corporation Announces Major Cost-Cutting Overhaul to Close Linear Broadcast Services for Television Channels BBC Three and BBC Scotland Alongside Digital Radio Station BBC Radio Four Extra
London Capital Markets Face Renewed Scrutiny After High-Profile Offerings Underperform Post-Listing
Green Party Wins Historic First Westminster Parliamentary By-Election in Gorton and Denton
Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds Unveils Sweeping Regulatory Overhaul for English Water Industry
United Kingdom Health Security Agency Confirms Thirty-Four Cases in Kent Meningitis Outbreak
Ministry of Defence Prepares Heat Pump Subsidy Cuts to Fund Urgent Military Modernization
British and European Union Officials Schedule Long-Awaited Bilateral Leaders Summit for November Twentieth
Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey Urges Strict Fiscal Credibility to Protect British Bond Markets
United Kingdom Inflation Rises to Three Point One Percent Driven by Escalating Fuel Costs
Profit Warnings Among London-Listed Companies Reach Two-Year High Amid Global Energy Shocks
Chancellor John Healey Signals Targeted Tax Changes on Banks and London Corporate Offices Ahead of Budget
British Government Reallocates Twenty-Five Per Cent of International Climate Finance to Global Biodiversity Projects
Initial British Carbon Border Taxes Set to Undercut Parallel European Union Tariffs on Industrial Imports
Whitehall Prepares National Zero-Interest Loan Initiative to Accelerate Domestic Heat Pump and Solar Adoption
European Union Offers British Automakers Access to Hybrid Vehicle Trade Protections Subject to Strict Regulatory Alignment
British Probation Officers Threaten Widespread Industrial Action After Rejecting Five Per Cent Government Pay Offer
Microsoft Abandons Major British Artificial Intelligence Data Centre Citing Severe National Grid Power Constraints
United Kingdom Inflation Accelerates to Three Point Four Per Cent Ahead of Chancellor John Healey's Inaugural Autumn Budget
Surging Cloned Number Plates Severely Complicate Traffic Enforcement and Police Investigations
Mounting Opposition Challenges Planned Rollout of Autonomous Taxis Across London
Influential Think Tank Urges Rejoining European Union to Navigate Geopolitical Crises
Government Review Recommends Slashing Benefits to Fund Youth Employment Initiatives
×