Google, once a DEI leader, is retreating after Trump's order

Google is scrapping the targets it set to hire more employees from historically underrepresented groups.

The tech giant is the latest company to scale back or abandon diversity, equality and inclusion policies after Donald Trump wiped DEI from the federal government and encouraged the private sector to do the same. 

Google sent a company-wide email on Wednesday saying it would no longer set hiring goals to improve workforce diversity, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Additionally, Google's parent company Alphabet changed its annual SEC report to remove a sentence affirming its "[commitment] to making diversity, equity, and inclusion part of everything we do and to growing a workforce that is representative of the users we serve." The sentence had previously been included in the company's reports from 2021 through 2024.

"We're committed to creating a workplace where all our employees can succeed and have equal opportunities," a Google spokesperson said, according to BBC. "We've updated our [annual investor report] language to reflect this, and as a federal contractor our teams are also evaluating changes required following recent court decisions and executive orders on this topic."

Google was one of many companies that responded to the 2020 murder of George Floyd with initiatives to increase diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. The company became a leader in DEI goals, saying it planned to increase the proportion of "underrepresented groups" in leadership positions by 30% in five years.

The tech industry has historically lacked diversity, especially Black and Latino employees. Google’s 2024 diversity report showed 5.7% of its U.S. employees were Black and 7.5% were Latino. Four years ago, those figures were 3.7% and 5.9%.

Google said it’s now evaluating whether it should continue releasing its diversity reports, despite having released them annually since 2014. The company also said it's reviewing other DEI initiatives, such as grants and training programs, with an eye on those that "raise risk, or that aren’t as impactful as we’d hoped."

"We’ll continue to invest in states across the U.S. — and in many countries globally — but in the future we will no longer have aspirational goals," the company's email said.