Stanford students walk out on Google CEO over defense contracts

Stanford students staged a walkout during Sundar Pichai's commencement address on June 14, 2026, protesting Google's contracts with Israeli defense and U.S. military agencies. Pichai, Google's CEO and a Stanford alumnus, was keynote speaker before 20,000 attendees. The protest echoes long-running internal and external pressure over AI applications in targeting and intelligence work—tensions that intensified since Google declined to renew its 2018 Pentagon drone-imaging contract.