Only days after a nationwide general strike to protest the Trump administration’s brutal immigration crackdown, a new group is now embarking on a longer coordinated economic strike, this time targeting a handful of tech companies.
“Resist and Unsubscribe” is a month-long economic strike focusing for the most part on tech and AI companies, aka “where economic and political power is most concentrated,” according to NYU Stern marketing professor Scott Galloway, who is spearheading the movement.
“The most radical action in a capitalist society is non-participation,” Galloway said in a video promoting the boycott. “The Trump administration doesn’t respond to outrage; it responds to economic signals.”
The movement identified 10 subscription-driven consumer tech and AI companies that they say have an outsized influence on both Trump and the economy. Those companies are Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Paramount+, Uber, Netflix, X, Meta, and OpenAI.
“America’s economy is one giant bet on AI, with seven tech companies representing more than a third of the S&P 500. That means the best way to ignite positive change, without hurting consumers, is to carry out an economic strike the tech CEOs can’t ignore,” Galloway wrote in a blog post.
These big tech companies are not only keeping the economy running, but they also have unprecedented access to the President. Silicon Valley interests have held a sizable presence in Trump’s approach to trade and regulation. One of his few instances of walking back threats in his grand attack on anti-ICE protesters was his decision to refrain from increasing the federal force in San Francisco, which he said he changed his mind on after talking to tech executives like Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff.
Not only have tech companies had influence over Trump’s decisions, but some have also offered support for his immigration policy. Back in October, Apple removed an app that allows users to track ICE activity because Attorney General Pam Bondi asked them to, and Palantir has built a $30 million surveillance platform for the agency.
Tech workers are also aware of this influence, and many have signed a letter asking company executives to speak out publicly, end all contracts with ICE, and demand that the White House end the crackdown. After the letter was released, Apple CEO Tim Cook told employees that he had brought the matter up in a conversation with Trump.
As part of the new boycott, protesters are spending all of February unsubscribed from paid services offered by these 10 major tech companies, such as Amazon Prime, Uber One, ChatGPT Plus, Microsoft Office, or YouTube Premium. The organizers are also asking people to refrain from buying Apple hardware products until March and to delete Meta platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook. They will, however, continue using Instagram as a way to spread the message, but ask boycotters to refrain from clicking on any ads and shopping from any links you may encounter on the platform.
The strike will also be targeting nine consumer-facing companies that they claim are “active enablers of ICE”: AT&T, Comcast, Charter Communications, Dell, FedEx, UPS, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Spotify, and Marriott.
AT&T, Xfinity provider Comcast, and computer maker Dell’s government contracting arm have all signed contracts with ICE to offer their services to the agency. Internet provider Spectrum’s parent company Charter provides cable TV and internet services to the Homeland Security Investigations office in Beaumont, Texas. A 404 Media report from August claimed that both Home Depot and Lowe’s share access to data from their AI-powered license plate readers with law enforcement surveillance systems that ICE can use, but Home Depot has since denied that claim. Spotify was under fire late last year for running ICE recruitment ads on its platform, carriers FedEx and UPS have delivery contracts with the agency, and reports have claimed that a Marriott-owned Sheraton hotel in Louisiana was used by ICE agents to hold detained families.
Protesters have previously been successful in getting companies to lose their business partnerships with ICE, like with Avelo Airlines, which decided last month to stop its ICE deportation flights after months of scrutiny. And on Sunday, French tech giant Capgemini divested from its U.S. subsidiary that was doing business with ICE, following scrutiny from union workers and French government officials.
Although both the general strike and “Resist and Unsubscribe” aim to hit Trump where it hurts, the month-long strike is a more sustained and hyper-focused approach, only targeting a group of large businesses. Retail analysts told Axios on Friday that general strikes tend to struggle in sustaining participation over days, which is when it would truly start to impact sales data.
“It’s easy for me to tell other people to stop working and take the risk of getting fired; that kind of walkout would only hurt small businesses and probably lead to more job losses,” Galloway said on his blog. “We’re also not urging local businesses to sacrifice sales and close their doors for a day, a symbolic but ultimately ineffective tool.”
Gizmodo sought comment from Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Paramount+, Uber, Netflix, X, Meta, AT&T, Comcast, Dell, Charter, FedEx, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Marriott, Spotify, UPS, and OpenAI. We will update if we hear back.
