The US technology industry, a major employer of foreign workers, hit back on Saturday at US President Donald Trump’s sudden executive order on immigration, with some leaders calling it immoral and un-American.
Trump’s order temporarily bars citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the US.
Netflix Inc chief executive Reed Hastings called it “a sad week” and added: “It is time to link arms together to protect American values of freedom and opportunity.”
Apple Inc CEO Tim Cook sent a letter to employees saying Trump’s order was “not a policy we support” and promised to help affected employees.
“We have reached out to the White House to explain the negative effect on our coworkers and our company,” Cook added.
Elon Musk, the South African-born founder of Tesla Motors Inc and SpaceX who met recently with Trump, said on Twitter: “The blanket entry ban on citizens from certain primarily Muslim countries is not the best way to address the country’s challenges.”
Airbnb Inc co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky said: “Not allowing countries or refugees into America is not right and we must stand with those who are affected.”
Airbnb will provide free housing to anyone not allowed into the US, Chesky said.
Aaron Levie, founder and CEO of online storage company Box Inc, said: “The executive order on immigration is immoral and antithetical to our values.”
Alphabet Inc’s Google urgently called back employees from overseas and told ones who might be affected by the ban not to leave the US.
CEO Sundar Pichai said in an email to staff that more than 100 Google employees were affected by the order, according to a Google executive.
One Google employee of Iranian nationality with legal US residency made it back to the US just hours before the order took effect, the executive said.
Microsoft Corp president and chief legal officer Brad Smith said in a company-wide e-mail posted on LinkedIn that 76 company employees were citizens of the seven countries in question and held US work visas, and thus were directly affected by the order.
He said the company had not determined how many people with green cards, or permanent residence status, might be affected.
“As a company, Microsoft believes in a strong and balanced high-skilled immigration system,” Smith said in the post. “We believe in the importance of protecting legitimate and law-abiding refugees whose very lives may be at stake in immigration proceedings.”
Uber Technologies Inc CEO Travis Kalanick, who has faced criticism from some employees for participating in Trump’s business advisory council, said in a statement that the company would compensate drivers from the seven countries who might not be able to return to the US for three months or more. He said the company knew of about a dozen affected employees.
“This ban will impact many innocent people — an issue that I will raise this coming Friday when I go to Washington for President Trump’s first business advisory group meeting,” Kalanick said.
Facebook Inc CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post on Friday he was “concerned” about the order and voiced support for immigrants.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group