Yesterday, 96 companies — including Apple, Google, Dropbox, eBay, uBer, Twitter, Spotify and a host of others — filed legal documents that object to President Trump’s Muslim ban. But they’re not just doing it because it’s the right thing to do. The filing makes it clear that Trump is disrupting business.
President Donald Trump on Air Force One on 3 February 2017 (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
“The Order represents a significant departure from the principles of fairness and predictability that have governed the immigration system of the United States for more than fifty years,” the amicus brief, filed by companies like Apple, Google and Facebook states. “And the Order inflicts significant harm on American business, innovation, and growth as a result.”
The order was filed by a diverse array of tech companies like Twitter, Intel, Reddit, Netflix, Lyft, Kickstarter, PayPal, Microsoft, Yelp, Airbnb, Spotify and Dropbox, just to name a few. But other non-tech companies like Levi’s, Warby Parker and Chobani were also signatories. Some news stories appear to be reporting that 97 companies signed the brief, but Turn Inc. is listed in the filing twice. It’s 96.
Curiously, one company whose CEO has been an adviser to the Trump administration was also on the list. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick pulled out of the business advisory council last week under pressure of a boycott.
“The Order makes it more difficult and expensive for U.S. companies to recruit, hire, and retain some of the world’s best employees. It disrupts ongoing business operations. And it threatens companies’ ability to attract talent, business, and investment to the United States,” the brief continues.
The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco rejected President Trump’s request to reinstate the travel ban from seven predominantly Muslim countries over the weekend. This filing makes it clear that these companies consider the order incredibly disruptive to their business.
At the end of the day, it’s the uncertainty around the order that concerns these businesses most. Businesses, much like the stock market, hate uncertainty and volatility. They thrive on stability, and Trump’s disastrous roll out of the immigration order was anything but stable.
“The Order also introduces severe uncertainty into the immigration system,” the brief says. “If this approach were upheld, future orders might apply to any nation, and suddenly and unexpectedly bar its nationals from entering or returning to the United States. That severely undermines immigrants’ and businesses’ ability to make plans, conduct business, or manage any affairs involving non-citizens.”
Which companies aren’t on the list? SpaceX and Tesla didn’t sign. Elon Musk has taken heat recently for being a bit too cosy with the Trump regime. Unlike Kalanick, Musk has remained on Trump’s advisory council, telling critics that he can change things from the inside. Amazon is also notably absent. An Amazon spokesperson tells Gizmodo that the Attorney General preferred that the company not join the amicus since they’re listed as a witness in the original lawsuit.
The complete list of companies that signed on to yesterday’s brief:
- AdRoll
- Aeris Communications
- Airbnb
- AltSchool
- Ancestry.com
- Appboy
- Apple
- AppNexus Inc.
- Asana, Inc.
- Atlassian Corp Plc
- Autodesk
- Automattic
- Box
- Brightcove
- Brit + Co
- CareZone
- Castlight Health
- Checkr
- Chobani
- Citrix Systems
- Cloudera
- Cloudflare
- Copia Institute
- DocuSign
- DoorDash
- Dropbox
- Dynatrace
- eBay
- Engine Advocacy
- Etsy
- Fastly
- Foursquare Labs
- Fuze
- General Assembly
- GitHub
- Glassdoor
- GoPro
- Harmonic
- Hipmunk
- Indiegogo
- Intel Corporation
- JAND, Inc. d/b/a Warby Parker
- Kargo Global
- Kickstarter
- KIND
- Knotel
- Levi Strauss & Co.
- LinkedIn Corporation
- Lithium Technologies, Inc.
- Lyft
- Mapbox
- Maplebear Inc. d/b/a Instacart
- Marin Software Incorporated
- Medallia, Inc.
- A Medium Corporation
- Meetup, Inc.
- Microsoft Corporation
- Motivate International
- Mozilla Corporation
- Netflix
- NETGEAR
- NewsCred
- Patreon
- PayPal Holdings, Inc.
- Quora
- Rocket Fuel
- SaaStr
- Salesforce.com, Inc.
- Scopely
- Shutterstock
- Snap
- Spokeo
- Spotify USA
- Square
- Squarespace
- Strava
- Stripe
- SurveyMonkey
- TaskRabbit
- Tech:NYC
- Thumbtack
- Turn Inc.
- Twilio
- Uber Technologies, Inc.
- Via
- Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
- Workday
- Y Combinator Management, LLC
- Yelp
- Zynga