Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents walk through a cloud of their own tear gas at the scene where federal agents fatally shot Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP)
After ICE agents in Minneapolis shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse and US citizen, protests in the US city have sparked up once again.
Pretti is the second person this month to be shot dead by the federal immigration officers in the city. Prominent tech leaders, including AI godfather Yann LeCun, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, and James Dyett, OpenAI’s global business head, are now taking to social media to share their views.
Yann LeCun
Meta’s former chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, who is considered one of the godfathers of AI, called ICE agents in Minneapolis “murderers”. The 65-year-old NYU professor also reposted anti-ICE tweets and pushed back against users who don’t agree with his stance.
Chris Olah
Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah also took to X to express his views on the recent Minneapolis shooting. In a post, Olah said that he does not typically comment on politics, but the recent incident “shock the conscience”.
“My deep loyalty is to the principles of classical liberal democracy: freedom of speech, the rule of law, the dignity of the human person. Immigrated to the United States — and eventually cofounded Anthropic here — believing it was a pillar of these principles.”
LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, who is known for being active on social media, also reshared comments from people, one of which said ICE was “out of control”.
Hoffman also reshared a post which called out “chronically online tech leaders” for being quiet on the shootings. In another post asking tech leaders to use their voice to stand up against Trump’s immigration policies, he replied that it was “time for all Americans to do so.”
James Dyett
OpenAI’s global head of business also asked tech and business leaders to criticise the Trump government’s shootings.
“There is far more outrage from tech leaders over a wealth tax than masked ICE agents terrorizing communities and executing civilians in the streets. Tells you what you need to know about the values in our industry.”
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Paul Graham
Paul Graham, a known entrepreneur and computer scientist known for co-founding the premier startup accelerator Y-Combinator also based the Trump administration.
In a post on X, Graham said that “if someone had predicted before the last election that if Trump won, federal officers would be shooting Americans in the streets, he’d have been dismissed as an alarmist.”
“Agents of a federal agency unnecessarily escalating, and then executing a defenseless citizen whose offense appears to be using his cellphone camera. Every person, regardless of political affiliation should be denouncing this.”
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Alex Pretti’s death comes weeks after days after Renee Nicole Good, another US citizen, was fatally shot by an ICE agent in the city, fuelling public anger over the agency’s operations.
Minneapolis police have said that Pretti, who was filming federal agents, was legally carrying a firearm. ICE officers have claimed that he was threatening them with a gun, but numerous videos show that he was already disarmed before being shot.
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Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents walk through a cloud of their own tear gas at the scene where federal agents fatally shot Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP)
