Iran threatened Nvidia, Google, Apple, and other companies with strikes on Middle East facilities

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has named 18 U.S. technology and defense companies — including Nvidia $NVDA, Apple $AAPL, Microsoft $MSFT, Google $GOOGL, and Meta $META — as “legitimate targets” for attack at their Middle East facilities, setting a deadline of 8 p.m. Tehran time (12:30 p.m. E.T.) on Wednesday to begin strikes.

The IRGC issued the threat through an IRGC-affiliated Telegram channel and semi-official Tasnim news agency, warning that the companies were being targeted in retaliation for U.S. and Israeli assassinations of Iranian leaders. “From now on, for every assassination, an American company will be destroyed,” the IRGC said.

The full list of companies named by the IRGC includes Cisco $CSCO, HP $HPQ, Intel $INTC, Oracle $ORCL, IBM $IBM, Dell $DELL, Palantir $PLTR, JPMorgan $JPM Chase, Tesla $TSLA, GE, and Boeing $BA. Two companies based in the United Arab Emirates were also listed: Abu Dhabi’s AI firm G42 and Dubai’s cybersecurity company Spire Solutions.

The IRGC directed employees at all the firms to leave their workplaces immediately and called for an evacuation of residents who live within one kilometer of those companies’ facilities across the region. The advisory indicated that the intended targets are the companies’ infrastructure across the Middle East, rather than facilities inside the U.S.

The IRGC said the companies were designated because of their alleged role in enabling the killings of Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Revolutionary Guards commander-in-chief Mohammad Pakpour, according to Time. “Since the main element in designing and tracking terror targets are American ICT and AI companies,” the IRGC said, “the main institutions effective in terrorist operations will be our legitimate targets.”

Intel said in a statement that the safety of its team is its “number one priority” and that it is “taking steps to safeguard and support our workers and facilities in the Middle East.” Microsoft, Google, and JPMorgan declined to comment.

The threat follows an earlier Iranian strike on Amazon $AMZN Web Services cloud facilities in the UAE and Bahrain in early March, which disrupted power and caused outages across a range of apps and digital services in the region. Some American companies had already asked Gulf-based employees to work remotely ahead of this latest escalation.

U.S. tech firms have built significant infrastructure across the Middle East in recent years, drawn by cheap energy and available land, as part of a broader regional AI buildout. The Gulf facilities now threatened represent billions of dollars in cloud and AI investment.

As the war stretches into its second month, the economic damage is quickly accumulating, darkening the global economic picture. 

Iran's threat comes as both sides send mixed signals on the possibility of ending the conflict, which began Feb. 28 with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran. President Donald Trump said he expects U.S. forces to leave Iran within two to three weeks, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the “finish line” is near. But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the U.S. would continue “negotiating with bombs” while working out a deal.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Al Jazeera that while he is in contact with U.S. officials, Iran has not responded to a 15-point ceasefire proposal. “We do not have any faith that negotiations with the U.S. will yield any results,” he said. “The trust level is at zero.”

More than 3,000 drones and missiles have been fired on the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Kuwait since the conflict began, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Brent crude prices have climbed above $100 a barrel since the war started, and U.S. gas prices exceeded $4 a gallon for the first time since 2022.