Yesterday the Supreme Court ruled that President Trump’s travel ban on six Muslim countries could take effect, a huge blow to advocates who have argued that the executive order was unconstitutional.
And, if you can remember as far back as last January, Silicon Valley entered the fray, with industry leaders voicing strong opinions on the travel ban. Many of the most prominent companies in tech denounced Trump’s executive order and vowed to fight it. Yet now that the Supreme Court has ruled, very few of them are speaking up once again.
I reached out to eight companies that earlier this year were very vocal in their disagreement with the executive order. Some didn’t respond. Others–including Facebook, Google, and Lyft–either wouldn’t comment or pointed back to statements made over six months ago. The only up-to-date statement was a tweet from Airbnb’s head of policy:
Re travel ban. Open Society v Closed Society – critical we continue to fight for an Open Society. The history of human advancement makes clear that an Open Society is a predicate for progress.
— Chris Lehane (@chrislehane) December 4, 2017
Companies that have yet to respond include Apple, Microsoft, Twitter, and Uber. I’ll update this post if anything changes. Hopefully tech will find its backbone soon.
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