Meta, Google, Y Combinator leaders call out Trump administration over Alex Pretti’s death — ‘Only a matter of time’
The tech community in the US is speaking out against Donald Trump’s administration after federal agents carrying out the President’s orders shot a man in Minneapolis on Saturday.
Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse, was shot and killed by agents in the city on Saturday as part of US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
It was the third shooting by a federal agent in the city this month and the second in which one person was killed, sparking worldwide alarm.
Tech leaders call out ICE agents’ actions
Alex Pretti’s death appeared to be the final straw in the Trump administration’s deportation policy against immigrants.
Pretti, who worked at a Veterans Administration hospital in Minneapolis, was shot after ICE agents were seen fighting with him on an icy road in the Midwestern city.
This came less than three weeks after an immigration officer shot and killed Renee Good, also 37, in her car.
While some in the tech industry initially welcomed the administration’s immigration crackdown, it faced backlash following the killings.
John O’Farrell, general partner at venture capital firm a16z, wrote about
Yenn LeCun, Meta’s chief AI scientist, just posted “Killers” and shared the video of the attack.
Y Combinator founder Paul Graham shared: “If someone had predicted before the last election that federal officers would shoot Americans in the streets if Trump won, they would have been dismissed as alarmists.”
Google Labs product director Kath Korevec expressed her shock and pain in a post.
In a follow-up post, he warned: “I can’t go to Minneapolis. And it’s only a matter of time before they come into effect here in the Bay Area.”
“Kristi Noem said ICE is funded through the Big Beautiful Bill and that ICE does not have to operate within the constraints of constitutional law because that money comes from a separate funding package. Read that again,” another post said.
Jeff Dean, chief scientist of Google DeepMind and Google Research, described the incident as ’embarrassing’.
“This is absolutely disgraceful. Agents of a federal agency needlessly escalate tensions and then execute a defenseless citizen who appears to have used a cell phone camera to commit the crime. Everyone, regardless of political affiliation, should condemn this.”
Trump administration officials quickly claimed that Pretti intended to harm federal agents, as he did after Renee Good’s death, pointing to the gun he said was found on his person.
But the video, which was widely shared on social media and confirmed by US media, showed that Pretti never pulled a gun, and that agents fired about 10 shots at him seconds after he was sprayed with a chemical irritant in his face and thrown to the ground, according to AFP.
