Today, large tech companies don’t just dominate the returns of major stock indices; they also dominate discussions about ethical uses of technology, including artificial intelligence (AI). From 2022-2025, the seven largest tech companies collectively accounted for more than half of the returns of the S&P 500. But big tech companies have also made headlines through their contracts with the US Department of Defense (DoD), US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), and state-owned entities in Russia and China.

Background

Given Friends Fiduciary’s role as an investor in several of these companies, we have closely followed these developments for years, with growing concern. For example, in 2019 and 2020, we co-filed shareholder resolutions with Amazon regarding the company’s facial recognition technology. We believed products being sold to immigration and law enforcement agencies risked inequitable application and mass surveillance. In June 2020, recognizing the human rights and business risks of these applications, the company declared a moratorium on its sale of facial recognition technology to these agencies, a moratorium which was extended indefinitely in 2021. Since that time, we have continued to file surveillance-related shareholder resolutions with Amazon, growing our focus in recent years to include the company’s oversight of the risks of potential AI misuse, including in ways that could support authoritarian governance, lethal autonomous weapons, mass surveillance, or censorship.

In January of this year, we shared an update about our current approach to conflict as investors and advocates. This approach remains focused on the conflict-affected and high-risk areas (CAHRAs) of Russa and Ukraine, Israel and Palestine, China and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), and US borders, immigration enforcement, and risk of government misuse of AI for violence or mass surveillance. We are currently engaging with ten of the world’s largest tech companies around the risks posed by these issues and CAHRA; more details can be found below.

Peace Testimony Convening

In 2024, we convened a group of sixteen Friends from a diversity of geographical, professional, and Quaker faith backgrounds, including those with ties to yearly meetings around the country, FGC, FUM, other Friends churches, organizations like FCNL and AFSC, Friends educational institutions, and several Friends with deep investment experience. We asked for discernment around weaponized technology specifically, and together we threshed questions around the nature of the peace testimony, the relative merits of investment screening and corporate engagement, and factors such as company intent vs impact.

This Peace Testimony Convening gave us a rich array of perspectives on complex challenges. Perhaps the most important sense of the convening was that Friends Fiduciary’s role gives us a unique opportunity to promote change by advocating for Quaker values with those in positions of power. After further discernment with Friends Fiduciary’s Peace Testimony Working Group, Investment Committee, and Board of Directors, we updated our investment guidelines in 2025 to formally create space for a third way when faced with difficult decisions about investment vs screening: a commitment “to engage in dialogue to gain clarity and make the case for change, or to exclude investments if or when the possibility of productive, long-term dialogue does not feel present.”

Engaging with Big Tech

In 2026, among the approximately fifty corporate engagements we are able to carry at one time, Friends Fiduciary is engaging ten of the world’s largest tech companies: Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Cisco, Oracle, Texas Instruments, Dell, IBM, Salesforce and PayPal. Each of these engagements is different. For example, this year we co-filed a shareholder proposal at Alphabet (aka Google) focused on data privacy and the risk of data access and misuse by government actors, including the company’s Project Nimbus contract with the Israeli government, which, based on reporting, could contravene Alphabet’s commitments not to violate the legal rights of others, pursue invasive purposes, or cause physical harm.

Microsoft, on the other hand, has engaged with us in ongoing dialogue and shown responsiveness to our concerns about making sure use of the company’s products aligns with its human rights policies. Texas Instruments has likewise come to the table with Friends Fiduciary over several years, refining their human rights policies and working to prevent the diversion of their semiconductors into Russian weapons used against civilian targets in Ukraine.

At PayPal, we co-filed a shareholder proposal this year urging the company to provide its services equally in CAHRA including Israel and Palestine, where reporting indicates Palestinians have been denied PayPal accounts—unequal treatment that risks hindering economic development and critical reconstruction efforts.

For the many other companies with whom we are already in dialogue or still maneuvering to enter conversations with the right people, we must often choose not to publicize details of those engagements, to ensure we preserve expectations of confidentiality and good-faith collaboration. That said, we will do everything we can to update our constituents on the progress of this work.

Investment Screening

Our investment screening is a multi-layered process with room for discernment at every stage. We use standard industry data to screen manufacturers of weapons and weapons components, companies whose businesses focus on fossil fuels, operators of for-profit prisons, gambling operations or lotteries, and those that produce alcohol or tobacco.

We also combine a range of public and investor-specific data sources to “score” companies, seeking those that perform better on peace and community (primarily social factors), simplicity and stewardship (primarily environmental factors), and integrity and equality (primarily governance, disclosure and DEI factors). At this stage some additional companies may not qualify for investment; for instance, Meta Platforms scores so poorly in key areas such as corporate governance, data privacy, and oversight that it faces frequent regulatory scrutiny and litigation risk, and we do not invest in the company. Other companies excluded by our multiple layers of screening and discernment specifically due to their involvement in weapons and conflict include Palantir, Caterpillar, Berkshire Hathaway, General Electric, RTX (Raytheon), Boeing, Lockheed Martin and more.

All of our investment screening decisions allow for discernment. We do not invest in a company simply because of its size or inclusion in a particular stock index, without also applying our screening and making space for discernment. This discernment might include staff, our Investment Committee, or a subcommittee of both. Friends Fiduciary’s Investment Committee members have decades of collective investment experience, and like the rest of our board they are also Friends guided in this work by our testimonies.

Balancing Engagement and Screening

Many Friends feel corporate engagement is critical in bearing witness to our testimonies, while others are focused on investment screening. Friends Fiduciary acknowledges and communicates openly about this tension. As one Friends Fiduciary board director recently put it:

FFC’s approach is to engage these [big tech] companies directly, believing dialogue can shift behavior over time. That process is often slow, and if it proves unproductive, FFC may ultimately divest. As with all Quaker processes, it is possible to disagree about the speed and outcome of such an approach, but let us do so in good faith.

Divestment campaigns have historically made important contributions to public awareness on issues like South African apartheid and fossil fuel emissions, helping, over decades, to stigmatize these issues in the public consciousness. But markets are highly efficient, and as research has shown, even these prominent divestment campaigns—unlike boycotts—have not had a financial impact on targeted companies.

In evaluating screening, therefore, the potential for impact is a vital decision point for Friends Fiduciary. Most companies would rather see us walk away than use their time and resources in engaging difficult questions with us. In an era where voices are being suppressed and even silenced, shareholder engagement is how we ensure Friends’ voices are still heard loud and clear in the corporate world.

We choose screening in the case of a weapons company that we cannot expect to repudiate its core business model. Likewise for fossil fuel companies, which have shown a decades-long unwillingness to drive a sustainable energy transition. But to write off all big tech companies in this moment—with so much in the balance—risks becoming a tragic missed opportunity. So as long as we believe an opportunity for meaningful change is present, we may discern our most faithful step is to remain engaged.

Where We Go from Here

As investors and as Friends, we are committed to continuing revelation. Friends Fiduciary recognizes the opportunity to share more detailed information about our work with constituents. In the months ahead, as we roll out a new web site and client portal, we will prioritize communication and ease of access to more information about what we do and how we do it. We commit to share updates as these changes are made, and to thoughtfully consider all feedback we receive.

We also have eleven staff. By comparison, well-known Quaker advocacy organizations like FCNL and AFSC have dozens, or even hundreds, of employees. Also unlike other Friends organizations, we are investors fi...

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