To Tim Cook and the Apple executive team,

We, current and former workers at Apple, write to express our profound dismay and disappointment at Apple’s response to the events taking place in Minneapolis and cities across the US, and our leadership’s continued collaboration with the Trump administration: Tim Cook has personally donated $1 million[1] to Trump’s inauguration fund and presented him with a 24k gold plaque[2], which directly flouts Apple’s corporate gifting and bribery policies.

On Saturday, January 24th, Tim Cook visited the White House to attend a movie screening[3] about Melania Trump. Earlier that same day, Alex Pretti was shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis. On January 7th, Ren�e Good was also murdered by an ICE agent while operating as a legal observer. ICE’s violence is longstanding: just one month into 2026, eight people[4] have already been killed by ICE, and many more suffer in detention centers under inhumane conditions[5] or through third country deportations.

Leadership was completely silent on these issues until January 27th, when a statement from Tim[6] was quietly posted internally, full of empty platitudes and noting that “a good conversation” had occurred with Trump this week.

In the past, Apple has taken a stand for what is right. Tim has spoken out about events such as the war in Ukraine and the murder of George Floyd. Ten years ago, Apple stood up to the federal government on Apple’s absolute commitment to privacy. We have seen leadership come with direct messages of support for affected Apple workers, calls to action for others to help, and donation matching to frontline organizations.

Apple workers bear the cost of this silence: no public support was offered to our retail workers in Minneapolis or other locations that are dealing with increased ICE activity. Many Apple workers in the United States are immigrants and are at risk under this administration. Instead, we’ve been met first with silence, and then with a shockingly weak statement regarding the murder of our neighbors at the hands of ICE and the Trump administration behind it. An administration that has shown it has no respect for the rule of law and no respect for us as human beings.

We call on company leadership to:

(1) Immediately and unequivocally condemn the violence perpetrated by ICE and the Trump administration, and cut ties with the Trump administration

(2) Reinstate the ICE Block app in the App Store, and guarantee similar apps used by organizers and legal observers will not be removed in the future

(3) Double donation matching to migrant orgs in Minnesota and/or legal observation groups monitoring ICE: ACLU of Minnesota, Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, Indigenous Roots, National Alliance on Mental Health (NAMI) Minnesota, Neighborhood House, CAPI USA, CTUL

We are asking our fellow Apple workers to:

(1) Reach out to [email protected] if you are interested in building collective worker power through organizing

(2) Sign the petition on https://iceout.tech/ and join other tech workers to demand ICE leave our cities

(3) Donate to organizations locally or in Minnesota that are working tirelessly to protect others and their rights. Go to https://www.standwithminnesota.com/ to find more organizations in Minnesota

Image Credit: "Downtown Minneapolis protest 2026-01-23" commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Downtown_Minneapol... by Lorie Shaull is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Citations:

[1] axios.com/2025/01/03/tim-cook-apple-donate-1-milli...

[2] theverge.com/news/737757/apple-president-donald-tr...

[3] theverge.com/news/867567/tim-cook-accused-rapist-b...

[4] theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/28/deaths-ice-202...

[5] aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/inside-an-ice-dete...

[6] theintercept.com/2026/01/27/apple-tim-cook-trump-a...