Silicon Valley shows when it's OK for business to get involved in politics

As Democrats on Capitol Hill approve Trump's cabinet nominees, some of America's biggest tech companies have filed an impassioned legal brief against the President's controversial policy

The late Steve Jobs, son of an immigrant to the US and co-founder of Apple (Getty)

The headquarters of the opposition to President Donald Trump has, it seems, relocated from Washington DC to Silicon Valley.

To the fury of American progressives, Democratic Senators have been tamely waving through most of Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees (three have backed every one of them to date). Some have talked about working with the new administration.

In the absence of anything resembling a spine from the official opposition in Washington DC, America’s tech giants have stepped up, alongside the right’s more traditional foes in the arts and entertainment world, to fiercely oppose the President's deeply divisive immigration policies.

Nearly 100 American companies have filed an impassioned legal brief condemning President Donald Trump’s executive order barring entry to the citizens from seven Muslim majority countries.

Among them are some of the biggest names in tech: Apple, Google owner Alphabet, Netflix, Snap, Uber, Lyft, and so on.

“Immigrants make many of the Nation’s greatest discoveries, and create some of the country’s most innovative and iconic companies,” it states. Notably Apple, which, as has been much discussed, was co-founded by the son of a Syrian immigrant in the form of the late Steve Jobs.

The brief pays due regard to the “importance of protecting ourselves against those who would do us harm” but stresses “maintaining our fundamental commitment to welcoming immigrants” while so doing.

We are told that an open letter to Mr Trump is also planned. Meanwhile Uber’s Travis Kalanick had to withdraw from a role advising the President under pressure from his own staff, while Amazon is being pressed to stop advertising on Trump cheerleader site Breitbart. Business superstar Elon Musk, another Presidential advisor, had to defend his role on Twitter over the weekend, arguing that the President needed to hear from moderate voices.

Money has, meanwhile, flowed from the Valley’s employees to the American Civil Liberties Union, among other progressive causes.

Now, there is a degree of enlightened self interest at work in this Silicon salvo. The Valley relies upon clever coders, and a lot of them come from overseas. If President Trump’s policies restrict the supply of them then its businesses will be put at risk.

It is also in the interests of the technology industry's big guns to keep the clever coders already employed happy. As a rule, they lean liberal, and are entirely comfortable with the diversity they see around them. Lots of them would like to think their employers share their values.

However, there is such a thing as measured opposition, something more commonly found among big companies, and then there is what the tech giants have done, which is rather more substantive. There is the sedate expression of mild disapproval while quietly cheering plans to cut taxes. And there is putting the corporate name on a legal brief, and the CEO's name to a (presumably strongly worded) letter.

Some might say it is unfair to juxtapose corporate opposition to a divisive immigration policy against cabinet confirmation hearings, but latter has been tame, the former, fierce.

At this point, a cynic might suggest that, in taking on the role of opposition leaders, these big companies are simply cutting out the middle men and women, who rely on their largesse to get into office and then act as their proxies. Silicon Valley's leaders may also realise that Mr Trump needs them, and the contribution they make to the US economy.

Still, what they have done matters. As a general rule, businesses should stay out of politics. But in a dangerous time, and with a very dangerous man in the White House, any and all such salvos are to be welcomed, particularly at a time when the official opposition is so weak.

Coming from a country that has also taken the wrong fork, and where the opposition is similarly befuddled, it's heartening to see.