Sundar Pichai

In February 2025, Sundar Pichai ended Google's DEI hiring goals that he had announced in 2020 (30% increase in underrepresented leadership by 2025). Google discontinued DEI training, dropped 58 DEI-related groups from funding, and removed DEI language from its 2024 10K filing. Pichai told employees the changes were needed to comply with Trump executive orders.

On December 12, 2024, Sundar Pichai and Google co-founder Sergey Brin dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. This marked 'a noteworthy departure from Google's approach to the first Trump administration' - in 2017, Pichai and Brin had joined protests against Trump's immigration policies. Pichai later attended Trump's inauguration in the front row.

In April 2024, Google terminated 28 employees following protests against the company's $1.2 billion Project Nimbus contract to provide the Israeli government and military with cloud computing and AI services. Nine workers had been arrested on trespassing charges after staging a sit-in at offices in New York and Sunnyvale. Workers alleged Google 'indiscriminately fired' people including some who did not directly participate in the sit-in, calling it 'flagrant retaliation.'

In October 2023, Sundar Pichai testified in the largest tech antitrust trial since the Microsoft case. The DOJ proved Google paid Apple over $10 billion annually (and $26.3 billion total in 2021) to be the default search engine on devices. The court found Google had illegally monopolized the online search market. In April 2025, Pichai testified against DOJ remedies proposals, arguing that forced data sharing would be a 'de facto divestiture' of the search engine.

On January 20, 2023, Sundar Pichai announced layoffs of approximately 12,000 employees (6% of workforce). Many received automated emails in the middle of the night and were locked out of corporate accounts immediately, including decades-long veterans, an employee on health leave, and an employee in labor. Pichai later admitted in December 2023 that it was 'not the right way to do it' and that it created 'a big impact on morale.' Over 1,300 employees later signed a job security petition. Workers asked for voluntary redundancies before compulsory ones, and freezing new hires.

In December 2020, Google terminated Timnit Gebru, the technical co-lead of its Ethical AI team, over a disagreement about a research paper scrutinizing bias in large language models. Google maintained Gebru resigned; Gebru says she was fired. Over 2,278 Google employees and 3,114 industry allies signed a petition protesting her departure. Pichai apologized for the process in an internal memo but did not reverse the outcome. Congressional representatives demanded answers from Google about the firing.

In June 2020, Sundar Pichai set a goal to have 30% more leaders from underrepresented groups by 2025 and dedicated over $175 million to an economic opportunity package targeting Black business owners, startup founders, developers, and job seekers, including $100 million in funding for Black-led startups. By 2024, Black representation in leadership rose from 2.6% to 5.1%, Hispanic from 3.7% to 4.3%, and women in leadership from 26.7% to 32.8%.

In June 2018, following the Project Maven controversy, Sundar Pichai published Google's AI Principles, committing the company to develop AI that is socially beneficial, avoids unfair bias, is built and tested for safety, is accountable to people, incorporates privacy design principles, upholds scientific excellence, and is made available for uses that accord with these principles. Notably, Google pledged not to develop AI for weapons or surveillance that violates international norms.

After over 3,000 Google employees signed an internal letter to CEO Sundar Pichai demanding cancellation of the Pentagon's Project Maven (AI for analyzing drone surveillance footage), Google announced it would not renew the contract when it expired in 2019. The decision was reactive - Pichai responded to massive internal pressure rather than proactively withdrawing. This directly led to the creation of Google's AI Principles.