Tech comes out against Donald Trump

During the primary season, tech industry leaders kept fairly quiet on the subject of the presidential race and its most notorious contender, Donald Trump. A few investors snarked about him on Twitter, and his campaign netted minimal donations from Silicon Valley. But now, many CEOs are denouncing the presumptive nominee in an open letter.

“We have listened to Donald Trump over the past year and we have concluded: Trump would be a disaster for innovation. His vision stands against the open exchange of ideas, free movement of people, and productive engagement with the outside world that is critical to our economy — and that provide the foundation for innovation and growth,” the letter says. It’s signed by an impressive list of executives from Slack, Twilio, Yelp, Reddit, Twitter, and more.

The letter chides Trump for his positions on immigration and a free and open internet, saying that his policy proposals would have a negative effect on the tech industry. The group of CEOs, investors, and policy advisors argue that immigration drives entrepreneurship, noting that 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies are founded by immigrants and the children of immigrants. “We believe that America’s diversity is our strength,” the letter says.

Tech leaders also take issue with Trump’s calls for shutting down the internet. At a Republican debate last fall, Trump said he would consider closing off internet access in countries with which America is at war. “I sure as hell don’t want to let people that want to kill us and kill our nation use our internet,” Trump said. The letter says that such a proposal demonstrates “both poor judgment and ignorance about how technology works,” and that it demonstrates Trump’s penchant for censorship.

Although the open letter is signed by nearly 150 people, signatures from employees of some of the largest tech companies — Facebook, Apple, and Google — are notably sparse. Google’s Vint Cerf is a signatory, but he is listed simply as an “internet pioneer” rather than a Google employee. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, an outspoken critic of Trump, also added his name to the list. Only one current Facebook employee, vice president of product design Margaret Stewart, signed the letter, but she is not joined by Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg subtly criticized Trump at Facebook’s F8 conference for the exact points highlighted in the letter, but has also faced criticism himself over claims that Facebook censored conservative media outlets.

The absence of Google and Facebook leaders from the letter is likely driven by the companies’ desires to remain neutral on political events. Despite Zuckerberg’s veiled criticism of Trump, Facebook remains a sponsor of both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. Google is also chipping in sponsorship dollars to the RNC.

Even without support from the likes of Zuckerberg and Tim Cook, the list of supporters of the letter is striking and diverse, including an MIT professor and former FCC chairman alongside major CEOs and investors. The letter is cross-posted to the Medium accounts of several of the writers, including Yelp VP of public policy Luther Lowe. (The letter is also signed by Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman and SVP of engineering Michael Stoppelman.) But Lowe says Yelp didn’t lead the effort to write the letter — rather, it was collaboratively written by the group.

The letter also bears the signatures of some of Hillary Clinton’s most outspoken Silicon Valley supporters. Joyus CEO Sukhinder Singh Cassidy and Hyperloop One executive chairman Shervin Pishevar have each hosted big-dollar fundraisers for Clinton and signed their names to the letter. Chris Sacca, a candid Clinton supporter and donor, also signed on.

However, the letter stops short of endorsing Clinton and merely denounces Trump’s candidacy.

“We stand against Donald Trump’s divisive candidacy and want a candidate who embraces the ideals that built America’s technology industry: freedom of expression, openness to newcomers, equality of opportunity, public investments in research and infrastructure, and respect for the rule of law. We embrace an optimistic vision for a more inclusive country, where American innovation continues to fuel opportunity, prosperity and leadership,” the letter says.

The full list of signatories is below:

Marvin Ammori, General Counsel, Hyperloop One
Adrian Aoun, Founder/CEO, Forward
Greg Badros, Founder, Prepared Mind Innovations; Former Engineering VP, Facebook
Clayton Banks, Co-Founder, Silicon Harlem
Phin Barnes, Partner, First Round Capital
Niti Bashambu, Chief Analytics Officer, IAC Applications
John Battelle, Founder/CEO, NewCo, Inc.
Ayah Bdeir, Founder/CEO, Little Bits
Piraye Beim, Founder/CEO, Celmatix
Marc Bodnick, Co-Founder, Elevation Partners
John Borthwick, Founder/CEO, Betaworks
Matt Brezina, Co-Founder, Sincerely and Xobni
Stacy Brown-Philpot, CEO, TaskRabbit
Brad Burnham, Managing Partner, Union Square Ventures
Stewart Butterfield, Co-Founder/CEO, Slack
Troy Carter, Founder/CEO, Atom Factory
Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, Founder/CEO, Joyus
Vint Cerf, Internet Pioneer
Amy Chang, Founder/CEO, Accompany
Aneesh Chopra, President, NavHealth; Former US CTO
Patrick Chung, General Partner, Xfund
Tod Cohen, General Counsel, StubHub
Stephen DeBerry, Founder/Managing Partner, Bronze Investments
Peter Diamandis, Entrepreneur; Author, Abundance and BOLD
Barry Diller, Chairman, Expedia and IAC
Esther Dyson, Executive Founder, Way to Wellville; Investor
Amy Errett, Founder/CEO, Madison Reed
Caterina Fake, Founder/CEO, Findery; Co-Founder, Flickr
Christopher Farmer, Founder/CEO, SignalFire
Brad Feld, Managing Director, Foundry Group; Co-Founder, Techstars
Josh Felser, Co-Founder, Freestyle Capital & ClimateX
Hajj Flemings, Founder/CEO, Brand Camp University
Natalie Foster, Co-Founder, Peers
David Grain, Founder/Managing Partner, Grain Management, LLC
Brad Hargreaves, Founder/CEO, Common
Donna Harris, Co-Founder/Co-CEO, 1776
Scott Heiferman, Co-Founder/CEO, Meetup
David Hornik, General Partner, August Capital
Terry Howerton, CEO, TechNexus
Reed Hundt, Former Chair, FCC
Minnie Ingersoll, COO, Shift Technologies
Sami Inkinen, Founder/CEO, Virta Health; Co-Founder, Trulia
Craig Isakow, Head of Revenue, Shift Technologies
Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr., President and Founder, Rainbow PUSH Coalition
Irwin Jacobs, Founding Chairman/CEO Emeritus, Qualcomm Inc
Paul Jacobs, Executive Chairman, Qualcomm Inc
Leila Janah, Founder/CEO, Sama & Laxmi
Sujay Jaswa, Former CFO, Dropbox; Founder, Witt Capital Partners
Mark Josephson, CEO, Bitly
Sep Kamvar, Professor, MIT
David Karp, Founder/CEO, Tumblr
Jed Katz, Managing Director, Javelin Venture Partners
Kim Keenan, President/CEO, Multicultural Media, Telecom & Internet Council
Ben Keighran, Entrepreneur; Former Design Lead, Apple
William Kennard, Former Chair, FCC
Vinod Khosla, Founder, Khosla Ventures; Co-Founder, SUN Microsystems
Ron Klain, Executive Vice President, Revolution LLC
Walter Kortschak, Former Managing Partner and Senior Advisor, Summit Partners
Jared Kopf, Founder AdRoll, HomeRun, Worldly
Joseph Kopser, Co-Founder, Ridescout
Karen Kornbluh, Former US Ambassador, OECD
Othman Laraki, Co-Founder/President, Color Genomics
Miles Lasater, Serial Entrepreneur
Jeff Lawson, CEO, Twilio
Aileen Lee, Founder/Managing Partner, Cowboy Ventures
Bobby Lent, Managing Partner, Hillsven Capital
Aaron Levie, Co-Founder/CEO, Box
John Lilly, Partner, Greylock Partners
Bruce Lincoln, Co-Founder, Silicon Harlem
Ruth Livier, President, Livier Productions, Inc.
Mark Lloyd, Professor of Communication, University of Southern California — Annenberg School
Luther Lowe, VP of Public Policy, Yelp
Nancy Lublin, Founder/CEO, Crisis Text Line
Kanyi Maqubela, Partner, Collaborative Fund
Jonathan Matus, Founder/CEO, Zendrive
Josh McFarland, Vice President of Product, Twitter
Andrew McLaughlin, Head of New Business, Medium; Venture Partner, betaworks
Shishir Mehrotra, Entrepreneur & former VP of Product & Engineering, YouTube
Apoorva Mehta, Founder/CEO, Instacart
Doug Merritt, CEO, Splunk
Dinesh Moorjani, Founder/CEO, Hatch Labs; Co-Founder, Tinder
Brit Morin, Founder/CEO, Brit + Co
Dave Morin, Entrepreneur; Partner, Slow Ventures
Dustin Moskovitz, Co-Founder, Asana; Co-Founder, Facebook
Amanda Moskowitz, Founder/CEO, Stacklist
Alex Nogales, President/CEO, National Hispanic Media Coalition
Alexis Ohanian, Co-Founder, Reddit
Mike Olson, Founder/Chairman/CSO, Cloudera
Pierre Omidyar, Founder, eBay
Felix W. Ortiz III, Founder/Chairman/CEO, Viridis; Board Member of The NYC Technology Development Corporation
Jen Pahlka, Founder/Executive Director, Code for America
Barney Pell, Founder Powerset, MoonExpress, Locomobi; Founding Trustee, Singularity University
Mark Pincus, Executive Chairman and Founder, Zynga
Shervin Pishevar, Co-Founder/Managing Director, Sherpa Capital and Co-Founder/Executive Chairman of Hyperloop One
Brandon Pollack, Director of Global Affairs, 1776
Amy Rao, Founder/CEO, Integrated Archive Systems, Inc.
Eric Ries, Entrepreneur & Author, The Lean Startup
Justin Rosenstein, Co-Founder, Asana
Alec Ross, Author, The Industries of the Future
Javier Saade, Venture Capitalist; Former Associate Administrator, SBA
Chris Sacca, Founder/Chairman, Lowercase Capital
Dave Samuel, Co-Founder, Freestyle Capital
Julie Samuels, Executive Director, Tech:NYC
Reshma Saujani, Founder, Girls Who Code
Chris Schroeder, Venture Investor; Author, Startup Rising
Jake Schwartz, Co-Founder/CEO, General Assembly
Robert Scoble, Entrepreneur in Residence and Futurist, Upload VR
Kim Malone Scott, CEO, Candor, Inc; Former Director, Google
Tina Sharkey, Partner, Sherpa Foundry & Sherpa Capital
Clara Shih, Co-Founder/CEO, Hearsay Social
Shivani Siroya, Founder/CEO, InVenture
Steve Smith, Executive Director, Public Policy Institute, Government Relations & Telecommunications Project, Rainbow PUSH Coalition
Jonathan Spalter, Chair, Mobile Future
DeShuna Spencer, CEO, kweliTV
Katie Stanton, CMO, Color Genomics; Former VP of Global Media, Twitter
Jenny Stefanotti, Co-Founder, OneProject; Board of Directors, Ushahidi
Debby Sterling, Founder/CEO, Goldiblox
Seth Sternberg, Co-Founder/CEO, Honor
Margaret Stewart, Vice President of Product Design, Facebook
Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO, Yelp
Michael Stoppelman, SVP, Engineering, Yelp
Baratunde Thurston, Former supervising producer, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah; Co-Founder, Cultivated Wit
Stephanie Tilenius, Founder/CEO, Vida Health; Board of Directors, Seagate Technology
Richard D. Titus, Entrepreneur; SVP, Samsung
Anne Toth, VP of Policy & Compliance, Slack
Bill Trenchard, Partner, First Round Capital
April Underwood, VP of Product, Slack
Max Ventilla, Founder/CEO, AltSchool
Tabreez Verjee, Co-Founder/Partner Uprising; Board Director Kiva.org
Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia
Hunter Walk, Partner, Homebrew VC; Former Director of Product Management, Google
Tristan Walker, Founder/CEO, Walker & Company Brands, Inc.; Founder/Chairman, Code 2040
Ari Wallach, CEO, Synthesis Corp.
Padmasree Warrior, CEO, NextEV USA; Former CTSO, Cisco
Laura Weidman Powers, Co-Founder/CEO, Code2040
Kevin Weil, Head of Product, Instagram
Phil Weiser, Hatfield Professor of Law, University of Colorado and Executive Director of the Silicon Flatirons Center
Daniel J. Weitzner, Principal Research Scientist, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Emily White, Entrepreneur; Former COO, Snapchat
Ev Williams, Founder/CEO, Medium; Co-Founder Twitter, Blogger
Monique Woodward, Venture Partner, 500 Startups
Steve Wozniak, Co-Founder, Apple
Tim Wu, Professor of Law, Columbia University
Andrew Yang, Founder/CEO, Venture for America
Arielle Zuckerberg, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

This post was updated on 7/15 to clarify Yelp’s role in drafting the letter.