• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, October 31, 2018

The political opinions of some Silicon Valley techies have come under fire of late, so professional social network Blind surveyed its community of tech employees to ask their political preference and whether or not the company that employs them accepts diverse political opinions.

Microsoft, Apple and Amazon are the top three companies that employ workers with the most conservative views, according to data released Thursday. 

About 4,650 employees at these five companies answered the first survey question: Is your company accepting of diverse political options? Of those who answered the first question, about 3,834 answered the second: What is your political leaning?

Google may not rank in the top three tech companies with the most Conservatives, but employees have dealt with the greatest amount of public controversy over political affiliations. About 46% of Google employees who participated in the survey identified themselves at Moderate, 34% as Liberal and 20% as Conservative. When it came to whether or not Google employees feel they can share their political opinions at work, 39.3% answered “Yes” and 60.7% answered “No.”

Still, it’s important to note that the majority of employees at Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Uber are not conservative. It should not come as a surprise that their political affiliations lean liberal at these companies.

Overall, of those participating, about 44% said they do not have political freedom at their workplace. About 39.4 consider themselves Liberal, 38.4% Moderate, and 22.1% Conservative.

The findings show that conservatives at Microsoft make up 39.9% of the tech employees participating in the survey. About 26.9% of the 553 Microsoft employees consider themselves Liberal.

The majority -- 39.2% -- consider themselves Moderate. When it came to whether or not employees feel they can share their political opinions at work, 47.4% answered “Yes” and 52.6% answered “No.”

Only 101 Apple employees participated in the survey, but of those, 44.2% consider themselves Liberal, 29.1% Moderate and 26.7% Conservative. When it came to whether or not employees feel they can share their political opinions at work, 60.4% answered “Yes” and 39.6% answered “No.”

Amazon -- which came in at No. 3 in terms of having a Conservative view -- leaned toward Liberal status. Of the 403 employees participating in the survey, 39.8% claim to be Liberal, 37.7% Moderate, and 22.5% Conservative.  When it came to whether or not employees feel they can share their political opinions at work, 59.3% answered “Yes” and 40.7% answered “No.”