Google co-founder Sergey Brin called the United Nations “transparently antisemitic” after it published a report accusing the search giant and other tech companies of profiting from “the genocide carried out by Israel” in Gaza.
Brin, who is Jewish, made his remarks in an internal Google DeepMind forum where some employees were discussing the allegations made by the UN’s Human Rights Council, according to screenshots obtained by The Washington Post.
“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,” Brin wrote.
“I would also be careful citing transparently antisemitic organizations like the UN in relation to these issues.”
Brin confirmed he chimed in about the “plainly biased” report.
“My comments came in response to an internal discussion that was citing a plainly biased and misleading report,” a spokesperson for Brin told the Washington Post.
The Post has sought comment from Brin, Google and the UN.
The HRC report was authored by Francesca Albanese, the special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories. The US recently called Albanese “unfit” for her role, citing alleged antisemitism and anti-Israel bias, and requested that she be removed.
A spokesperson for UN-Secretary General Antonio Guterres told The Post that human rights special rapporteurs like Albanese “are named by the Human Rights Council, made up of countries that are elected to the council.”
Guterres “has neither the authority to hire them nor does he have the authority to fire them,” the spokesperson said.
“So, while they do have a UN logo and UN title in their name, they work fully independently of the Secretary-General. He has no idea what they’re going to do, where they are or what they say.”
The spokesperson added that “as we’ve said repeatedly, her opinions are not shared by the Secretary-General.”
The Post has sought comment from Albanese.
Albanese, an Italian legal scholar, has been accused of making comments that are “widely viewed as antisemitic,” including claims about the “Jewish lobby” and comparisons of Israeli policies to “Nazis and the Third Reich.”
Critics also claim she minimized Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre by framing the violence as a response to Israeli oppression. Israel subsequently invaded Gaza to root out Hamas.
The report by the HRC, which is headquartered at the UN office in Geneva, Switzerland, accused American technology companies of enabling Israel’s military operations in Gaza by providing cloud and AI services.
It specifically cited Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud contract awarded to Google and Amazon by Israel in 2021, claiming the companies “stepped in with critical cloud and AI infrastructure” to help Israel’s military during its incursion into Gaza to wipe out Hamas’ terror network.
The Gaza Health Ministry, run by the Hamas government, claims over 57,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, though it does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denied genocide accusations, saying the country is defending itself against Hamas’ expressed desire to wipe Israel off the map.
Hamas’ brazen cross-border terror attack killed around 1,200 people in Israel.
Brin, who was born in Moscow and immigrated to the United States when he was young, has amassed a net worth valued by Bloomberg Billionaires Index at $149 billion.
He stepped down as president of Google parent company Alphabet in 2019 but remains on the board and is a controlling shareholder.
His comment in the Google DeepMind forum upset some employees, according to forum members.
“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,” one engineer reportedly wrote in the forum.
Last year, Google fired 28 workers over their participation in a 10-hour sit-in at its New York and Sunnyvale, Calif., to protest the company’s business ties with the Israel government.
CEO Sundar Pichai later said in a company memo that employees should not use their workplace to “fight over disruptive issues or debate politics.”
Despite efforts to publicly distance itself from Israeli national security agencies, Google staff had directly assisted the country’s Defense Ministry and the Israel Defense Forces in accessing AI tools after the Oct. 7 attacks, the Washington Post reported earlier this year.
In February, Google removed a pledge from its AI ethical guidelines that stated it would not use the technology for weapons or surveillance.
The guidelines, first issued in 2018 after protests over military contracts, had previously committed to aligning AI development with “widely accepted principles of international law and human rights.”