President Trump is facing a rare bipartisan backlash after a group of federal agents shot and killed protester Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday. But tech industry leaders—once some of Trump’s fiercest critics—are sitting this one out.
Pretti’s killing, depicted clearly in multiple angles of bystander video, has galvanized even apolitical corners of the internet and united voices from opposite sides of the political spectrum. The fatal shooting took place less than three weeks after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Minneapolis resident Renee Good as she attempted to drive away from an encounter with federal agents in the city.
In an internal letter posted to Apple employees and reported by Bloomberg, CEO Tim Cook addressed the situation unfolding in Minneapolis but stopped far short of criticizing the president or his aggressive immigration policies, which have left two people at protests in the city dead within the span of three weeks.
Cook described himself as “heartbroken by the events in Minneapolis,” adding that he had a “good conversation with the president” on the issue and appreciated Trump’s openness to talking about it.
“This is a time for de-escalation,” Cook said. “I believe America is strongest when we live up to our highest ideals, when we treat everyone with dignity and respect, no matter who they are or where they’re from, and when we embrace our shared humanity. This is something Apple has always advocated for.”
Cook’s statement echoes Trump’s own language. The president told Fox News on Tuesday that he planned to “de-escalate a little bit” in Minnesota.
The letter is not likely to please Apple workers who are furious that Cook attended a glitzy screening of the new Amazon-sponsored documentary about first lady Melania Trump at the White House hours after Pretti’s death. Attendees were treated to “popcorn in Melania-branded buckets, white cake pops, black-and-white macarons, a cereal box featuring the film’s poster, and white sugar cookies with ‘Melania’ written in black frosting,” according to Yahoo News.
Cook and tech’s other big players are all-in on the second Trump administration. Silicon Valley CEOs attended the president’s inauguration and also donated to build Trump’s deeply controversial $300 million ballroom—a project that misled the public and resulted in the total demolition of the White House’s historic East Wing.
By standing behind the president, Cook and others likely hope to cultivate a comfortable regulatory environment for their businesses while staving off other Trump-issued punishments, like targeted tariffs. Some of the richest, most powerful men in the world once checked Trump’s power, but they’ve enthusiastically abandoned that role during his second term.
Trump’s misinformation machine distorts the facts
Silicon Valley leaders may be firmly behind Trump, but Americans are increasingly unsettled by the administration’s immigration policies. More than half of those polled earlier this month believe that ICE’s enforcement actions are making cities less safe, and fresh polling over the weekend revealed that nearly 60% of Americans believe that ICE has gone “too far.”
In spite of growing public anger and video evidence to the contrary, Trump officials scrambled to distort the facts of Pretti’s death over the weekend.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem misleadingly claimed that Pretti “attacked” officers while brandishing his gun—a falsehood plainly contradicted by video evidence. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller went even further, describing Pretti as an “assassin” who “tried to murder federal agents,” a claim that Vice President JD Vance and Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino doubled down on.
Other Trump officials asserted that Pretti broke the law by carrying a gun to a protest, but the Minneapolis police verified that the Veterans Affairs ICU nurse held a permit to carry a concealed weapon and was behaving lawfully.
“You cannot bring a firearm loaded with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want,” FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News over the weekend. President Trump himself also said that Pretti “shouldn’t have been carrying a gun,” rankling Second Amendment advocates and many of his own supporters.
Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy called Pretti’s killing “incredibly disturbing,” adding that the Department of Homeland Security’s credibility is in question. “There must be a full joint federal and state investigation,” Cassidy said on X. “We can trust the American people with the truth.” The NRA echoed calls for an investigation, criticizing public officials who demonized Americans for lawfully carrying weapons.