Three Amazon software engineers have filed a complaint with Seattle's Office for Civil Rights, alleging that Amazon retaliated against them after they testified before Seattle City Council in support of a moratorium on new mega data centre developments in the city. The engineers — Patrick Schloesser, Liesl Wigand and Darius Irani, all members of Amazon Employees for Climate Justice — say Amazon initiated disciplinary action on 10 June, approximately one week after their testimony at the council hearing. The workers allege the company violated a Seattle ordinance barring employment discrimination on the basis of political speech; all three cited that city law at the outset of their testimony.
Amazon has not issued a specific response to the 18 June civil rights complaint. An Amazon spokesperson said previously that the company respects its colleagues' right to voice their opinions. The Seattle Office for Civil Rights, led by Director Derrick Wheeler-Smith, has authority to investigate discrimination claims within Seattle city limits. Seattle officials have unanimously passed a proposal to limit new mega data centre developments in the city for one year. Amazon has said it currently has no plans to construct data centres within Seattle city limits.
The complaint arrives as Amazon (AMZN) and other large technology companies are committing unprecedented capital to AI infrastructure. Amazon is reported to be spending $200 billion on capital this year, with the majority directed toward data centres and AI [Source: CNBC]. Across Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta, combined capital expenditure commitments this year total roughly $700 billion, mostly for AI infrastructure [Source: CNBC]. Amazon has also laid off more than 30,000 corporate employees since October 2025. Patrick Schloesser, a software engineer at Amazon Web Services, has worked at the company for nearly six years.
The Seattle dispute is part of a broader pattern of local resistance to large-scale data centre construction. Four developers had approached a local utility provider to pitch building five large-scale data centre facilities in Seattle, with two of those developers subsequently withdrawing their proposals. The proposed facilities would have carried a combined maximum demand of 369 megawatts, equivalent to roughly one-third of Seattle's average daily electricity use. According to Data Center Watch, at least $156 billion in data centre projects were blocked or delayed in 2025 amid local opposition and litigation [Source: CNBC]. The National Conference of State Legislatures reports that 14 states are considering legislation that would pause or ban new data centres [Source: CNBC].
Amazon Employees for Climate Justice published an open letter in November 2025 calling on Amazon to power all data centres with 100% local renewable resources. Amazon has committed to being 'water positive' by 2030 and says it is 53% of the way toward returning more water to communities than it uses for data centres. The civil rights complaint is now before Seattle's Office for Civil Rights.
Sources: Wired, Bloomberg, The Verge, CNBC, Fortune, Seattle Office for Civil Rights