Google CEO Sundar Pichai Was Protested During His Stanford Commencement Speech. It Wasn’t Because of AI

Over 100 Stanford students walked out of Google CEO Sundar Pichai's commencement speech, chanting 'Free, free Palestine' and booing, to protest Google's cloud contract with the Israeli government under Project Nimbus. The protest was premeditated, as Pichai had just begun his speech and did not mention sensitive topics. This follows a trend of commencement disruptions, including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt being booed at the University of Arizona.

A commencement speech by yet another titan of industry has been met with disapproval from graduates. Google is, once again, the company associated with the speaker, but this time the issue isn’t AI per se, but company involvement with Israel. According to the Information’s Erin Woo, a speech by Google CEO Sundar Pichai was protested https://x.com/erinkwoo/status/2066211367338832234 in the form of a walkout, along with chants of “free, free, Palestine” and “Shame on you.” Well over 100 Stanford students walked out of Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s commencement speech at Stanford just now, chanting “Free, free Palestine.” Google has a cloud contract with the Israeli government. Lots of boos and cries of “shame on you” as well pic.twitter.com/2dIqs1SBvi — Erin Woo @erinkwoo June 14, 2026 In a video from the ceremony, Pichai carries on with his speech while dozens “Well over 100” by Woo’s count of graduates march to the exit. That part of the speech doesn’t appear to touch on any sensitive or controversial material—giving the impression that this was not spontaneous. In fact, j udging from a transcript of the speech https://blog.google/company-news/inside-google/message-ceo/stanford-commencement-speech-2026/ , it looks like Pichai had just started talking. Google and Amazon have a joint contract called “ Project Nimbus https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/23/what-is-project-nimbus-and-why-are-google-workers-protesting-israel-deal ” with the Israeli military and government. The contract is reportedly worth $1.2 billion—or 4 billion shekels according to Israel https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/tech-news/2021-04-21/ty-article/israel-picks-google-amazon-for-official-state-cloud/0000017f-e896-dc91-a17f-fc9fd1ce0000 —and provides Israel with cloud computing, advanced AI, and more. Reports about the actual details of Project Nimbus come largely from leaks https://theintercept.com/2022/07/24/google-israel-artificial-intelligence-project-nimbus/ . The Electronic Frontier Foundation has criticized the companies for their alleged lack of transparency https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/google-and-amazon-acknowledged-risks-and-ignored-responsibilities around Project Nimbus. One of Pichai’s predecessors, Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was loudly booed https://gizmodo.com/ex-google-ceo-eric-schmidt-fails-to-read-room-on-ai-gets-booed-to-oblivion-2000759763 during his commencement speech at a University of Arizona commencement ceremony about a month ago. The booing took place when Schmidt touched on AI, and I wrote at the time that Schmidt failed to read the room. That does appear to have been the case, but later reporting made it clear that some of the booing was likely premeditated. Schmidt was already a controversial speaker because of his possible ties to Jeffrey Epstein https://www.kvoa.com/news/petition-seeks-removal-of-u-of-a-grad-speaker-citing-epstein-files/article 1ca553d7-d949-4037-b4ab-52ae9cada555.html , and some of the disruption reportedly https://fortune.com/2026/05/20/the-sound-of-graduating-from-college-in-the-ai-summer-of-2026-boo/ involved graduates shouting “Epstein files Epstein files ” In at least one photo https://x.com/erinkwoo/status/2066211367338832234/photo/2 , Stanford graduates held up painted banners. One of them makes reference to ICE. In February, 900 Google staffers called for transparency about Google’s ties to the federal government over concerns that its technology was abetting the Trump Administration’s immigration crackdowns. Booing commencement speakers has drawn a great deal of media attention this graduation season. Real estate executive Gloria Caulfield and music executive Scott Borchetta https://gizmodo.com/the-booing-will-continue-until-commencement-speeches-improve-2000762929?mrfhud=true were also booed this year, but in those cases, crowd hostility was clearly a reaction to their defenses of AI.