The shooting of a second American citizen this weekend by federal immigration agents in Minnesota has forced business leaders to do something they have rarely done since President Donald Trump returned to office last year: publicly oppose his policies.
Government officials have remained silent for months as the Trump administration expands its massive immigration crackdown. The Department of Homeland Security has sent thousands of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents to Minnesota in recent weeks, sparking violent clashes with protesters.
It wasn’t until the January 24 killing of intensive care nurse Alex Preti by federal agents that more CEOs began to break from a year of near-silence about the president’s actions. The next day, dozens of executives from Minnesota-based companies co-signed a letter calling for “immediate de-escalation” in the state.
Still, it was clear that business leaders were treading carefully, not mentioning the names of the shooting victims or the president’s name or policies. Rather than speaking as individuals, they presented their messages as a group.
The reluctance of some of America’s most powerful and wealthy business leaders to explicitly oppose the president’s policies is indicative of how President Trump used his power during his second term. President Trump has sued media companies, law firms, universities and banks, and threatened them with regulatory scrutiny and reviews of lucrative government contracts.
“They don’t want to speak out on their own because they’re afraid,” Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at Yale School of Management, told CNBC. “They know they will be dumped, coerced and threatened.” [by the administration]. Retaliation is very severe. ”
On January 23, 2026, demonstrators marched through downtown Minneapolis in subzero temperatures waving placards denouncing the ongoing immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities metropolitan area.
Alex Corman | Minnesota Star Tribune | Getty Images
Some CEOs are getting a little bolder. A few days before Mr. Preti’s murder, JP Morgan Chase Jamie Dimon has become the first prominent US CEO to criticize President Trump’s immigration crackdown.
In the days following Preti’s death, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Apple CEO Tim Cook also spoke out. “Part of loving our country is America’s obligation to push back against excesses,” Altman said in a Slack message to OpenAI employees. “What’s happening at ICE is an excess.”
Tim Cook said in an internal message to Apple employees on Tuesday that he was “saddened by the events in Minneapolis,” calling for “de-escalation” and adding that he had privately expressed concerns to Trump.
President Trump has appeared to soften his stance on the DHS presence in Minneapolis in recent days, using de-escalating language that echoes the leaders’ open letter and saying he had a “very respectful” phone call with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. But he has not yet pulled ICE agents out of Minneapolis, and it is unclear when he will.
President Trump’s change in tone comes as Democrats have vowed to oppose funding for DHS, largely because of their opposition to the administration’s Minneapolis operation, raising the risk of a partial government shutdown later this week.
Experts said one thing was clear. That said, Mr. Preti’s death and the viral video and analysis of his final days demonstrate that there are limits to business obedience.
In Minneapolis, target, united health and 3Mhas become a test of when and how far business leaders will go in response to heightened political tensions caused by a president pushing the limits of state power.
ICE patches and badges are seen worn by Homeland Security officials as Vice President J.D. Vance speaks after a roundtable with local leaders and community members as federal immigration agents flood the area on January 22, 2026, in Royalston Square in Minneapolis.
Jim Watson | Pool | Getty Images
use power as a weapon
There have been previous examples of corporate leaders using their influence to change the tide. In the fall, President Trump planned an ICE execution in San Francisco. But the president canceled it in part because of conversations with Bay Area business leaders, including Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
Since ICE and Border Patrol agents entered Minnesota late last year in what was dubbed Operation Metro Surge, videos have shown them shoving protesters, restraining children, spraying protesters with chemical irritants and, in at least two cases, using firearms.
The operation follows similar efforts in cities such as Chicago and New Orleans, raising concerns in some quarters of what they see as agency overreach.
“I don’t like the sight of five grown men beating a little woman,” JPMorgan’s Mr. Dimon said in an on-stage interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “I think we need to quell some of the anger in the country against immigrants.”
Later in the discussion, Mr. Dimon’s interviewer, The Economist editor-in-chief Zanny Minton Beddoes, told the veteran CEO that she was surprised by how cautious Mr. Dimon and other leaders were when talking about Trump.
“I’m genuinely surprised that American CEOs don’t have anything critical to say,” Minton Beddoes said. “There is a climate of fear in your country.”
Mr. Dimon, who has long talked about the need for immigration reform, countered, “I think we need to change our approach to immigration.” “I’ve already said it. What else do you want me to say?”
The day after Dimon’s comments, President Trump filed a lawsuit against JPMorgan and Dimon for $5 billion for closing bank accounts after the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. President Trump had threatened to sue JPMorgan days before Dimon’s remarks at Davos, and the implications were clear. Companies that are seen as disrespecting the president are facing retaliation.
“If you’re the CEO of a company, this guy can cause stock prices to crash,” Tad DeHaven, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute, said of the president. “We have seen this regime weaponize every conceivable tool of power it has.”
In a CNBC poll of business executives conducted days after Preeti’s murder, 56% said it was “much more difficult” to speak out on social and political causes today. The CNBC Council Flash poll surveyed 34 companies about ICE’s presence in Minnesota.
Of the 34 business owners surveyed, only one reported speaking out publicly about the situation in Minneapolis, about a third said it had nothing to do with their business, 21% said they were still considering public comment, and 18% said they were concerned about backlash from the Trump administration.
Some of these companies acknowledged that the challenges were close at hand, but remained silent. Approximately 15% of companies surveyed said they were aware of employees who had been personally affected by ICE enforcement in the past 12 months.
Eli Yokeley, a U.S. political analyst at Morning Consult, said that in addition to the risk of retaliation from the White House, companies are becoming more reluctant to express their opinions and anger a divided American public.
“Many of them are probably thinking at least of the post-‘woke’ backlash that has occurred culturally, and some people are going to be pushing themselves,” he says. “If you’re a consumer brand, you don’t want to get involved in politics in a world as polarized as this.
“People can react quite violently,” Yokeley said.
Moreover, there is no national consensus on whether business executives should even have a say in President Trump or his policies.
A Morning Consult poll of nearly 1,000 American adults conducted on January 20 found that 40% of Americans say CEOs who criticize President Trump are acting responsibly, but only 28% say they should speak out publicly if they disagree with the president’s policies.
According to the survey, about 38% of respondents said they would have a less favorable view of a company if a CEO publicly praised President Trump, and 25% said they would have a more favorable view of a company.
Americans are similarly divided about the role of corporations, especially when it comes to immigration.
Among Morning Consult respondents, 23% said companies should fully cooperate with ICE enforcement, nearly as many as 22% who said companies should actively resist.
Demonstrators rally and march during the ICE Out Day protest in Minneapolis, January 23, 2026.
Stephen Maturen | Getty Images
near home
Target, one of the most prominent Minneapolis-based companies, has captured the shift in corporate response to President Trump’s policies from his first to his second term.
Four days after George Floyd was killed by a police officer a short distance from the retailer’s headquarters in 2020, Target CEO Brian Cornell wrote an emotional statement describing Floyd’s death as a homicide and naming other Black people killed by law enforcement.
As the Black Lives Matter movement gains momentum across the United States in the wake of Floyd’s death, Cornell University and Target have committed to taking action to support diversity and inclusion.
“As a team at Target, we united, we consoled ourselves, we witnessed horrific scenes similar to what is happening now, and we cried that not enough had changed,” he wrote at the time. “And as a team, we vowed to face the pain with purpose.”
Compare it to your current environment. Target leaders made no public statement after Minnesotan Renee Goode was killed by ICE agents earlier this month. Instead, the company circulated an internal memo from its human resources director that acknowledged that employees were experiencing a “range of emotions” and emphasized the company’s focus on employee and customer safety.
An FAQ linked to the memo said the retailer “does not have a cooperative agreement with ICE” and that federal agents, including ICE, have legal authority to enter parking lots and customer-facing areas of stores without a warrant.
On Monday, Target’s incoming CEO Michael Fidelke shared a video message with employees that more directly acknowledged current events, but stopped short of calling for the withdrawal of ICE agents from the city or a review of two fatal shootings in the city. Fidelke did not mention Good, Preti or Trump by name.
“The violence and loss of life in our community is incredibly painful,” he said. “I know this is weighing heavily on many of you across the country, just as it is on me.”
There may be a reason why Target is being cautious. The company’s sales have been hurt in recent years by boycotts from both Trump supporters and liberal critics who felt the company had caved in to President Trump’s push against diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
But local leaders say the company also has a responsibility to protect the community.
For the past three weeks, a group of Minneapolis faith leaders has called on the company to take a tougher stance on ICE actions in Minneapolis after two Target employees in Minneapolis, both American nationals, were taken in by a team of ICE agents the day after Mr. Goode’s death.
Target’s signatures on a joint letter with other Minnesota businesses were not enough, the group said.
“It’s worse than silence, because you can’t feel anything,” said Martha Bardwell, pastor of Our Savior Lutheran Church in Minneapolis.
“We know that corporate leaders have a lot of power if President Trump is going to listen to everyone,” Birdwell said. “We are asking CEOs to be clear and use the power they have.”
Birdwell was part of a small group of Twin Cities clergymen who met with Target’s CEO, Cornell, last week to encourage the company to step up its response. The clerics said they left the meeting without receiving any new pledges from their targets.
