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More than 60 Minnesota business leaders called on Sunday for “an immediate de-escalation of tensions” in the state, after immigration agents killed a second US citizen in Minneapolis during protests over the Trump administration’s deportation agenda.
CEOs from companies headquartered in the city — including 3M, Best Buy, Cargill, General Mills, Target, and UnitedHealth Group — put their names to an open letter calling for “peace and focused cooperation among local, state and federal leaders.”
Local business leaders had been working behind the scenes every day for several weeks with Gov. Tim Walz, the White House, Vice President JD Vance, and local mayors, the letter said, without giving further details.
Sunday’s statement comes after signs of growing pressure on CEOs to comment on the clashes between Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and protesters. Scores of tech workers have signed a petition, asking industry CEOs to call the White House and demand that ICE leave US cities, cancel company contracts with the agency, and “speak out publicly against ICE’s violence.”
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Few top executives have commented publicly on the crisis until now, in contrast to the widespread CEO response to the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020. Hilton, the hotel group, faced criticism from both supporters and opponents of President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement after a front-desk agent barred immigration officers from a Minneapolis hotel.
Jeff Dean, chief scientist at Google DeepMind and Google Research, accused federal agents involved in the shooting of Alex Pretti on Saturday of “unnecessarily escalating, and then executing a defenseless citizen.” Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group, wrote on X that there was “no excuse for a government to unleash this kind of violence on its own citizens.”