Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, accused the United Nations of being clearly antisemitic following a report that was published alleging technology firms profited off of the “genocide carried out by Israel” in Gaza for their technological connections to Israel, according to a Washington Post report published Wednesday.
Brin called the UN “transparently antisemitic” in an internal forum for employees, with the report citing screenshots obtained by the Washington Post. The UN report accused Google and its parent company, Alphabet, of profiting from the war by providing cloud and AI technologies to the Israeli government and military.
“With all due respect, throwing around the term genocide in relation to Gaza is deeply offensive to many Jewish people who have suffered actual genocides. I would also be careful citing transparently antisemitic organizations like the UN in relation to these issues,” Brin wrote in a forum for staff at Google DeepMind, the company’s AI division, where screenshots reportedly depicted workers debating the report.
The UN report was authored by Francesa Albanese, the Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Albanese has been accused of antisemitism on numerous occasions, and the United States called her “unfit” for her role in recent months.
The US representative to the United Nations asked that she be removed from her role for demonstrated antisemitism and bias against Israel.
The subject of whether the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza can be defined as a genocide is hotly debated, with Israeli critics claiming it meets the definition of genocide, but with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejecting the claims, calling the war a defensive act from an attempted genocide by the terror organization Hamas.
“My comments came in response to an internal discussion that was citing a plainly biased and misleading report,” according to a statement provided by Brin’s spokesperson.
Google has a longstanding history of fighting antisemitism
According to the Washington Post, the forum on which his comments were made was hosted on Google Chat and has nearly 2,500 members, who are largely AI researchers. Some employees were confused while others were upset, an employee said.
Google leadership struggled and previously clashed with workers who protested the company’s connection with Israel, particularly after the October 7th massacre, leaving 1,200 murdered and more than 250 people taken hostage, with 50 hostages still remaining in Gaza nearly two years later. The company chose to sell its artificial intelligence tools to the IDF after the attacks.
Brin immigrated to the United States as a child with his Russian Jewish parents, seeking to escape the antisemitism they faced in the Soviet Union. He left his daily role at his company in 2019 and continued to work on Google’s competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which was launched in 2022.
In the UN report, corporations were named and shamed, with Albanese calling for the involved companies to be held accountable for any assistance given to Israel regarding military action in Gaza. The UN report alleges that Google and Amazon’s 2021 contract, entitled Project Nimbus, provided the necessary cloud and AI infrastructure the IDF needed in the wake of the Hamas surprise attack.
Despite Brin’s comment and Google’s connection to Israel, Google, as a company, has publicly avoided any connection to Israel’s security agencies. However, earlier reports claim that company staff directly assisted the Defense Ministry and IDF with access to AI technology after October 7th.
Google quietly dropped its commitment to not use AI technology for weaponry or surveillance from its ethical guidelines, which were initially put in the broader guidelines first issued in 2018 after employee protests erupted against Google’s military contracts.
Other companies have taken decisive action on employee activism and political disturbance following an outbreak of protests from employees at companies doing business with the Israeli government.
Google fired several workers who protested the company’s cloud contract with Israel in 2024, with CEO Sundar Pichai stating that their workplaces are not meant to be the place to fight over divisive issues or debate politics.
In the forum, aptly named “GDM Hot Goss” referring to Google DeepMind, Brin’s comment responded to an AI research engineer’s commentary on the reports findings on Google’s AI investment to be focused on Gemini, its virtual assistant app, Gemini. “The only bright spot here is that we’re spending all of our time and money on Gemini and not anything more useful for genocide,” screenshots showed.