What official statements have Microsoft and Amazon made about their relationships with ICE and Palantir since 2018?
Executive summary
Microsoft has issued a limited set of public statements since 2018 acknowledging that it provides cloud and productivity services to U.S. immigration agencies while distancing itself from policy choices — for example a 2018 remark from CEO Satya Nadella acknowledging cloud support for ICE alongside a criticism of administration immigration policy, and a July (year not specified in sources) Microsoft statement saying its ICE work involved “email, messaging and document management workloads” and expressing faith in democratic institutions [1] [2]. Amazon’s corporate spokespeople have been far less visible in the record provided: AWS repeatedly declined public comment in reporting, while employee-led letters and internal campaigns demanded AWS cut ties with Palantir and ICE, and Amazon leadership has been described as “shy” about acknowledging those staff protests [3] [4].
1. Microsoft’s official posture: narrow technical role plus political distancing
Microsoft publicly characterized its technical relationship with ICE as limited to standard enterprise services rather than bespoke deportation tools, telling reporters that its contract covered “email, messaging and ‘document management workloads’” and framing the company’s approach as consistent with democratic institutions [2]. Reporting also records CEO Satya Nadella in 2018 confirming Microsoft provided cloud support for ICE while criticizing contemporary immigration policy as “simply cruel and abusive,” a line that signals moral distancing from policy while not announcing any contract terminations [1]. Independent advocacy reports and contract-tracking coverage, however, list active Microsoft contracts with immigration agencies, which creates a tension between Microsoft’s narrowly described technical role and critics’ claims that cloud hosting materially supports enforcement operations [5] [6].
2. Amazon’s public comments: silence from AWS, visible employee activism
Amazon’s corporate responses in the coverage provided are notable for what they do not say: Business Insider and other outlets report AWS declined to comment when asked about Palantir running on AWS or broader ICE ties, and the company “shied away” from publicly acknowledging employee letters demanding divestment from Palantir and ICE-related work [3] [4]. The most visible statements around Amazon’s relationship with Palantir and ICE have come from worker-organized letters and emails — including a 2018–2019 push by hundreds of employees urging leadership to remove Palantir from AWS and to stop providing infrastructure that “enables ICE” — rather than from an explicit corporate policy reversal or formal Amazon denial of services to Palantir [4] [3].
3. Palantir’s cloud dependence and what companies have said (or not said) about it
Multiple reports underline that Palantir’s software has depended on cloud hosting from AWS and Microsoft Azure and that Palantir is a major contractor for ICE, but public statements from the cloud providers have been sparse: Palantir’s S‑1 and reporting note large noncancelable cloud commitments and that Palantir runs on AWS and Azure, while press outlets show Microsoft and Amazon facing accusations from advocacy groups that hosting Palantir effectively supports ICE’s profiling and case‑management operations [3] [6] [7]. The available corporate communications from Microsoft emphasize the limited nature of services provided, whereas Amazon’s publicly documented posture in these reports is largely silence or refusal to comment when pressed about third‑party customers like Palantir [2] [3].
4. Employee pressure and advocacy campaigns shaped the public record
A recurring factual thread is that internal employee activism at both Amazon and Microsoft drove much of the public scrutiny: over 450 Amazon employees (by some accounts) and hundreds more in subsequent years wrote to leadership demanding Amazon sever ties with Palantir and stop enabling ICE, and Microsoft employees similarly protested its contracts — a dynamic highlighted in reporting and in advocacy reports that accused cloud providers of enabling ICE by storing profiling databases [3] [4] [6]. These campaigns produced public letters and media attention but, according to the sources, did not translate into clear, companywide public commitments to terminate relations with ICE or Palantir [4] [1].
5. Alternative viewpoints, agendas, and limits of available statements
Advocacy groups and investigative reports make the case that cloud hosting materially enables ICE operations and call for corporate divestment [6] [8], while companies that have spoken portray their role as providing neutral IT infrastructure or emphasize internal values and institutional faith [2] [1]. The record provided does not contain comprehensive, dated corporate policy reversals or detailed contract-termination announcements from either Microsoft or Amazon since 2018; when companies commented they framed services narrowly or declined to comment, and much of the pressure and public detail came from external advocacy reports and employee letters rather than formal, sustained corporate public policy statements [3] [2] [4].
Conclusion
Since 2018 Microsoft has released narrow, enumerative statements positioning its services to ICE as standard enterprise workloads while publicly distancing its leadership from harsh immigration policies, and Amazon’s visible public stance in the supplied reporting is characterized more by silence and repeated refusals to comment when pressed about Palantir than by firm, public disavowals — with the most explicit pressure on both companies coming from employee activism and advocacy reports accusing them of enabling ICE through hosting arrangements [1] [2] [3] [4] [6]. The sources provided do not document a sweeping, unequivocal corporate announcement by either company ending services to ICE or to Palantir; they show instead selective acknowledgements, employee-driven demands, and advocacy accusations that kept the companies in the public spotlight [4] [6] [3].