Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Charlottesville and Barcelona: 'Terrorism is terrorism, and it takes many forms' (GOOG, GOOGL)

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August 18, 2017 1:06 AM

Google CEO Sundar Pichai denounces the Charlottesville and Barcelona attacks, saying such actions are "designed to divide us."

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Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Thursday denounced the recent violence by extremists in both Charlottesville and Barcelona, calling the incidents in both cities "terrorism [that] is designed to divide us."

"Terrorism is terrorism and it takes many forms," Pichai said in an email sent to employees, which he also posted on Twitter.

Pichai sent the letter in response to Thursday's deadly van attack in Barcelona and theevents in Charlottesville on Saturday that left one woman dead after she was allegedly run over by a white supremacist.

In his letter to employees, Pichai noted that the last week has been "intense" for Google. The company has been dealing with a firestorm over James Damore, the engineer it fired after he wrote a manifesto that suggested that women are less suited for jobs in technology because of biological differences.

But that controversy "pales in comparison" to the terrorism incidents, Pichai wrote. The attacks "show the devastating and heartbreaking consequences of hatred, violence, and extremism," he said.

Following the attacks in Barcelona, Google's local security team there confirmed that all employees in the city were safe, Pichai wrote.

Pichai's note follows those of Apple CEO Tim Cook and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, both of whom denounced the violence in Charlottesville in internal e-mails to employees. Cook, who took particular aim at President Donald Trump's response to the events in Charlottesville, promised to donate $1 million each to two civil rights groups.

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