Silicon Valley Employees Are Starting to Protest Again

"When the pandemic resulted in mass hiring, rather than layoffs, liberal and progressive workers at major tech companies felt secure enough in their positions to speak out about politics - sometimes against their employers - throughout the first Trump administration but particularly in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd. Within a couple of years, though, tech leadership's attitudes had begun to swing back."

"The ZIRP era was over, and they decided they'd overhired and that it was time for employees to come back to the office. In hindsight, they felt they'd let employee activism go too far. More employees, less motivated by an acute sense of political crisis and now worried about getting laid off or replaced by AI, started keeping their heads down; those who didn't, protesting their employers' connections to the Israeli government, for example, were often disciplined or fired."

"In Silicon Valley, explicitly MAGA investors and companies were outspoken and ascendant. Mark Zuckerberg redesigned his own interface and deployed himself to the Joe Rogan podcast. Musk, well down the road to public radicalization, gave himself to the cause of the new administration. Less flamboyant leaders at big tech companies scrounged kind words for Donald Trump, donated personally to his inauguration, and literally lined up behind him, while a new generation of AI leaders set about triangulating."

During the pandemic, mass hiring in major tech firms empowered liberal and progressive employees to speak out about politics, especially after George Floyd's killing. Within a few years, leadership attitudes shifted as low interest rates ended and executives judged the industry overhired, pushing return-to-office policies. Executives viewed earlier employee activism as excessive, and growing fears of layoffs and AI replacement led many employees to keep quiet. Protesting workers were often disciplined or fired. The prospect of Trump's reelection intensified the reaction: MAGA investors gained influence, prominent executives publicly courted or supported Trump, and AI leaders recalibrated their positions.

Read at Intelligencer