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Ro Khanna and Vinod Khosla spar over Standford-Pichai debacle
An irate Khosla lambasted the students for walking out during Khanna's speech, calling them "biased, idiotic, short-sighted and very selfish".
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Jeffin T. Kaleekal - Mon, 15, Jun 2026
- 04:14 EDT
- 43
Ro Khanna and Vinod Khosla / Wikimedia commons
A war of words spilled between Indian American Congressman Ro Khanna and entrepreneur Vinod Khosla after Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai faced a student walkout during Stanford University's 135th commencement ceremony on June 14, with Khosla questioning the legitimacy of the student action.
Indian-American tech leader Pichai, delivering the keynote at Stanford’s 135th commencement, was met with a major student walkout as over 100 graduates left the stadium chanting pro-Palestinian slogans and waving flags.
The protest targeted Google’s involvement in Project Nimbus, the $1.2 billion cloud computing contract with the Israeli government, which demonstrators say supports operations amid the Gaza conflict.
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An irate Khosla lambasted the students, calling them "biased, idiotic, short-sighted and very selfish".
Taking offence to the walkout, Khosla said, "The stupidity of these Stanford students to take the greatest opportunity for equality in humanity ever and to really free humanity and go walk out on Google and Sunder Pichai that's pioneered that."
Khosla accused the students of highlighting the Palestine issue while ignoring the billions of poor people in the world. He added, "Biased, idiotic, short-sighted and very selfish. Selfish because they ignored the bottom 3 billion people on this planet vs. the few million Palestinians who I also support. Get real!"
Khanna defended the student protest and noted, "Vinod, my understanding is these students walked out to protest Google's contract with IDF given Israel's genocide in Gaza."
The Congressman went on to argue that the protests were shielded by the students' first amendment rights. He said, "Wherever one stands on those contracts, I believe you would support their right of free expression and challenging authority."
Google does not publicly describe Project Nimbus as a direct weapons contract with the IDF, but the contract includes the Israeli government and its defense establishment. Additionally, multiple investigations have found that the Israeli military has been a significant stakeholder and user of the project.
Despite the disruption, Pichai continued with his remarks, delivering a speech that focused largely on personal growth, optimism and finding meaningful work. Pichai did not address the walkout and even stayed away from discussing Project Nimbus or AI in general.
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