More than 100 Stanford University graduates walked out during Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s commencement address on June 14, chanting “Free Palestine” in protest against Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud and AI contract Google holds with the Israeli government shared with Amazon [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. Around 200 students participated in the walkout according to some reports, while others put the number at just over 100 [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].
The protest was organized by groups including Students for Justice in Palestine, No Tech for Apartheid, and Tech for Liberation [3, 4, 2]. Students carried signs reading “ICE SPIES WITH GOOGLE AI,” “GENOCIDE RUNS ON GOOGLE,” and “FREE FREE PALESTINE” to express their opposition to Google’s involvement with the Israeli military [3].
Project Nimbus is a $1.2 billion contract providing cloud and artificial intelligence services to the Israeli government and military, shared between Google and Amazon [3, 4, 5]. Protesters aimed to highlight Google’s role in supporting Israel amid ongoing conflict.
Some attendees booed Sundar Pichai as he took the stage, but Pichai did not address the protest or the war in his speech. Instead, he focused on optimism, his personal journey, and how graduates can frame their circumstances. He stated, “We don’t get to choose the world we graduate into, but we do get to choose how we frame our circumstances” [4, 5].
The walkout drew criticism from business figures like venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, who called the protest “biased, idiotic, short-sighted and very selfish” and said, “The stupidity of these Stanford students to go walk out on Google and Sundar Pichai that’s pioneered the greatest opportunity for equality in humanity ever” [3, 4].
However, some political figures supported the students’ right to protest. US lawmaker Ro Khanna stated, "My understanding is these students walked out to protest Google's contract with IDF, given Israel's genocide in Gaza. Wherever one stands on those contracts, I believe you would support their right of free expression" [4].
The protest at Stanford continues a pattern of walkouts related to the Israel-Palestine conflict, with similar demonstrations at commencements in 2024 and the firing of 28 Google workers in protest of Project Nimbus the same year [3, 5].
The June 14 graduation ceremony marks the latest public protest against Project Nimbus at Stanford and draws renewed attention to tensions surrounding technology partnerships and geopolitical conflict [6, 1, 3, 4, 2, 5].
