Spotify
Spotify is the world's largest music streaming service. On 24 February 2026 the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), a founding member of the BDS movement, endorsed the consumer boycott of Spotify. due to the company's recruitment ads for Israel's prison service and for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, its launch partnership with an Israeli telecom listed in the United Nations database of businesses tied to illegal Israeli settlements, its hosting of Israeli military propaganda, and founder Daniel Ek's investment of Spotify-derived wealth into the military AI company Helsing.
The settlement database, mandated by the UN Human Rights Council in 2016 and first published by the OHCHR in 2020, names companies whose operations are connected to Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory, which are illegal under international law.
Daniel Ek and the Helsing investment
Daniel Ek, the founder of Spotify, is also the chairman of Helsing, a German company that builds AI software and AI-enabled attack drones marketed to Ukraine, the UK, and NATO members. Through his investment firm Prima Materia, Ek led a €600m funding round into Helsing in June 2025, following an earlier €100m round in 2021.
Helsing holds contracts with arms manufacturers that supply Israel, including Rheinmetall, Saab, and Airbus. Airbus is involved in surveillance of the US-Mexico border, and its subsidiary Airbus DS Airborne Solutions partners with the state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries.
Business and advertising tied to Israel
Spotify entered the Israeli market through a multi-year deal with an Israeli telecommunications firm (Partner Communications) listed in the United Nations database of businesses operating in illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land.
Spotify has hosted Israeli government propaganda, including "Mission Brief: The Official Podcast of the Israel Occupation Forces." In late 2025 it ran recruitment ads for Israel's prison service, which operates under Itamar Ben-Gvir and which Palestinian rights groups have documented using torture and sexual violence against Palestinian prisoners.
Advertising for US immigration enforcement
In October 2025, Spotify ran recruitment ads for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Spotify defended the ads as consistent with its advertising standards and declined to change its policy.
Artist pay and platform practices
The musicians' union United Musicians and Allied Workers called Ek "a warmonger who pays artists poverty wages." Spotify is the subject of a class action alleging that its recommendation algorithm steers listeners toward labels that pay for placement.
PACBI acknowledges that many artists cannot pull their music from Spotify given its control over industry, but endorses the subscriber boycott and asks artists to add their voices. It calls for canceling subscriptions and deleting accounts until Spotify adopts an advertising, sponsorship, and partnership policy that bars companies and agencies complicit in human rights violations, and ends its business with Partner Communications and other Israeli companies tied to the occupation. In its words, "Genocide, apartheid, exploitation and racist deportations should never be on the playlist."
Sources:
- Addameer The mass arrest and systemic torture of Palestinian detainees in the West Bank, the hidden side of Israel’s ongoing genocide
- AFSC Investigate Airbus SE
- Airbus Airbus and Helsing to collaborate on artificial intelligence for the teaming of manned and unmanned military aircraft
- BDS Movement Unwrapping Spotify: Profiting from Apartheid, Genocide, and Racist Deportations
- Business & Human Rights Resource Centre Spotify faces boycott over CEO's $700m investment in AI military defence startup
- DJ Mag Spotify's Daniel Ek leads €600 million investment in AI military defence company
- Instagram According to @lucas.febraro, Spotify is running recruitment ads in Israel for armed units in the Israel Prison Service
- Los Angeles Times Spotify is running ICE recruitment ads. Here's what to know
- Rheinmetall Rheinmetall and Helsing – partners for the next generation of armed forces
- SAAB Saab signs strategic cooperation agreement and makes investment in Helsing
- The Electronic Intifada EU rewards Israel for genocide by approving new drone deal
- United Nations Human Rights Council Database of business enterprises involved in activities in the occupied Palestinian territory (A/HRC/60/19)