Stanford graduates walk out on Google CEO over company’s ties to Israel
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Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, delivers Stanford’s Commencement address on Sunday, June 14, 2026, in Palo Alto, Calif. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
By Luis Melecio-Zambrano | lmeleciozambrano@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group<br>PUBLISHED: June 14, 2026 at 3:40 PM PDT | UPDATED: June 16, 2026 at 9:09 AM PDT
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...<br>As Google CEO Sundar Pichai took the stage Sunday at Stanford’s commencement, scores of graduates stood, booed and walked out, turning a celebration for nearly 6,000 degree recipients into a protest over the tech giant’s work with Israel.
Pichai, a Stanford alumnus leading one of the world’s most powerful companies, appeared unfazed. His speech largely avoided the artificial intelligence debate that has shadowed other tech-heavy commencement addresses this season, instead offering graduates a familiar message about optimism, hard choices and pursuing work that excites them.
Sunday morning began as a typical Stanford celebration, with thousands of onlookers braving the late spring sun beneath a cloudless sky. Graduates walked in riding inflatable horses, wearing cardboard mock-ups of Lightning McQueen and Caltrain or, in the case of a few male graduates, only Stanford-red briefs and sunglasses beneath their graduation gowns.
It was all part of Wacky Walk, the decades-long Stanford tradition in which graduates wear costumes on their way to their commencement seats.
Graduates enter Stanford Stadium for the 135th Commencement ceremony at Stanford University on Sunday, June 14, 2026, in Palo Alto, Calif. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)<br>Related Articles
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But the ceremony became a site of protest as Pichai prepared to take the stage.
“Sundar himself has modeled thoughtfulness, humility and determination in leadership and in making decisions of consequence to Google into the world,” Stanford President Jonathan Levin said as he introduced him.
Pichai earned a master’s degree in materials science and engineering from Stanford in 1995 before joining Google in 2004, where he played a key role in the development of Google Chrome. He later became CEO of Google and its parent company, Alphabet.
Even as Levin welcomed the CEO of “one of the most innovative companies in the world,” many students responded by booing. When Pichai took the stage, scores of students stood and walked out of the stadium, some chanting or booing as they left. The vast majority of students remained seated.
“What I see in front of me is how graduation should be,” Pichai said toward the beginning of his speech, even as students chanted “free, free Palestine” while they marched out. “Graduates celebrating together with the people you love who have supported you on your journey."
Similar walk-outs were also staged in 2024 and 2025, when students left during the Stanford president’s remarks.
Stanford University graduates walk out of the Commencement speech by Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, on Sunday, June 14, 2026, in Palo Alto, Calif. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)<br>The protest centered in part on Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud-computing contract involving Google, Amazon and the Israeli government that has drawn criticism from students, activists and tech workers opposed to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
The moment also came after a string of commencement speeches by tech leaders and AI boosters who have used graduation stages to promote AI, often drawing pushback from students. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was met with boos when he began talking about the rise of AI at the University of Arizona.
Pichai acknowledged the AI controversy while mostly sidestepping it.
“People have been giving me a lot of advice … about what not to say,” Pichai said, hinting that it was the “last two letters of my last name.”
But, he added, “the most timeless advice I’ve learned is technology agnostic.”
Graduates celebrate...