Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has named 18 prominent American technology and corporate entities as what it described as legitimate military targets, issuing an explicit threat to strike their regional operations in retaliation for the continued killing of senior Iranian officials. The Guards said in their statement that these companies, starting from 8pm Tehran time on Wednesday April 1, should expect the destruction of their relevant units in exchange for every assassination in Iran, and advised employees of the listed institutions to immediately leave their workplaces to preserve their lives.
The list published on the IRGC’s official Sepah News channel reads like a roll call of America’s most valuable technology companies, naming Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Nvidia, Intel, Cisco, Oracle, Dell, HP, IBM, JPMorgan Chase, Tesla, General Electric, Boeing, and Palantir, alongside Spire Solutions and G42, the Abu Dhabi-based artificial intelligence firm that has become a linchpin of the Gulf’s AI ambitions. The IRGC framed the threat around its assertion that American information and communications technology companies and artificial intelligence firms had played a direct role in designing and tracking targets for the assassination operations that have killed a succession of Iranian leaders since the war began on February 28. Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei and Revolutionary Guards commander-in-chief Mohammad Pakpour were killed on the first day of the war, with the Islamic republic’s powerful security chief Ali Larijani also subsequently killed along with many other prominent figures.
The threat carries particular weight given the scale of American technology investment in the Middle East region. Amazon has pledged USD 5 billion to an artificial intelligence hub in Riyadh, while Oracle, Cisco, and Nvidia have announced a partnership with OpenAI to build an artificial intelligence campus in the United Arab Emirates. Google and Amazon Web Services are constructing dedicated cloud regions in Saudi Arabia scheduled to launch this year, and hyperscaler capital expenditure is forecast to exceed USD 600 billion in 2026, with a substantial portion flowing into the region the IRGC is now threatening. In parallel, the United States State Department issued an advisory warning American citizens in Saudi Arabia to shelter in place following reports of threats against locations including hotels, United States businesses, and educational institutions. Meanwhile, diplomatic channels remain active, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicating that messages are being exchanged with Iran and that the potential exists for a direct meeting between leaders at some point.
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