Upwork POLITICAL

Corporate Communications & Public Stance

Statements. No public evidence identified of an Upwork press release, blog post or other official corporate statement on the Israel-Palestine conflict; the portions retrieved of the FY2022, FY2023, FY2024 and FY2025 Forms 10-K and of the 2024, 2025 and 2026 proxy statements contain no reference to Israel, Gaza or Palestine ^{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7}.

Earnings-call remarks (7 November 2023). On Upwork’s Q3 2023 earnings call, an RBC Capital Markets analyst asked about the impact of the conflict in the Middle East, and CEO Hayden Brown answered, calling the events “incredibly heartbreaking” and saying that civilians were being affected in a horrific way ⁸. She said Upwork has a very small number of team members in the region and is focused on their safety, and that “We don’t anticipate any impact to our business as our GSV from that area is negligible” ⁸. CFO Erica Gessert answered the earlier macro portion of the same exchange ⁸.

Act record: earnings-call remarks.

• Acting entity: Hayden Brown, President and CEO, speaking on the earnings conference call of Upwork Inc., the registrant named in the SEC filings ^{8, 1}.
• Recipient or beneficiary: the analyst community and investors on the call; no aid recipient is named ⁸.
• Channel: a third-party transcript host (fool.com), not Upwork’s own site; the primary Upwork-hosted transcript was not retrieved ⁸.
• Earliest and latest dated observation: 7 November 2023 ⁸. No later Upwork remark on the conflict was identified, including in the FY2024 and FY2025 Form 10-K portions read ^{5, 6}.
• Status: a single dated remark; whether it continues is unknown, and no repetition was identified ^{8, 5, 6}.
• Persistence and audience: the transcript remains online on the host; its audience beyond the call participants is not established ⁸.

Reported internal note and non-comment position. The Staffing Industry Analysts article of late 2023 could not be retrieved, so its text is unverified. A trade article on Outsource Accelerator (posted 3 November 2023, updated 30 October 2026) says only that Fiverr and Upwork “also aim to support affected freelancers” and quotes no Upwork spokesperson ⁹. No public evidence identified of an internal note from Hayden Brown on humanitarian aid, of its date, of any named aid recipients, or of any matching arrangement; no public evidence identified of an Upwork statement that it was declining to comment ^{8, 9}.

Comparative statements on other conflicts. On 8 March 2022 a message from Upwork President and CEO Hayden Brown, forwarded to the NANOG mailing list and archived on seclists.org (a third party’s domain), said Upwork had begun suspending operations in Russia and Belarus, linked the move to the war in Ukraine, and announced a $1 million donation to Direct Relief International for the Ukrainian population plus a $100,000 matching programme for team-member donations ¹⁰. Freelance Informer (last updated 9 March 2022) reported the same measures, including that existing contracts would remain open with final billing due by 1 May 2022 ^{11, 12}. The Big Issue reported on 14 March 2022 that Upwork let buyers purchase Project Catalog projects with the money going directly to Ukrainian freelancers without freelancer fees, and that about 3,953 projects were listed ¹³. A Business Wire release dated 13 June 2022, republished by a newspaper site, reported a $100,000 talent-credit contribution by Upwork to Airbnb.org to support housing relief for refugees, including Ukrainian refugees ¹⁴. The FY2022 Form 10-K states that Upwork “decided in March 2022 to suspend business operations in Russia and Belarus”, and the FY2023 and FY2024 Forms 10-K repeat that decision ^{2, 1, 5}. The FY2025 Form 10-K portions read (about the first 200,000 of roughly 289,000 characters) do not mention Russia, Belarus, Ukraine or Israel, so the current status of the suspension is not established from that filing ⁶.

Comparative silence. Set against the dated Ukraine-related statements, donations and platform measures above, the only Upwork public remark on the Middle East conflict identified is the 7 November 2023 earnings-call answer, which was framed around staff safety and business impact ⁸. No public evidence identified of a comparable Upwork donation, fee waiver, matching programme or platform measure addressed to Israeli or Palestinian civilians ^{8, 9, 13}.

Act record: Russia/Belarus suspension and Ukraine measures.

• Acting entity: the message is attributed to Hayden Brown as President and CEO of Upwork, and the filings name the registrant as Upwork Inc. ^{1, 10}. The contracting entity for the donations is not stated in the sources retrieved ^{10, 14}.
• Recipient or beneficiary: Direct Relief International (for the Ukrainian population), Upwork team-member donors through the matching programme, Ukrainian freelancers through Project Catalog, and Airbnb.org ^{11, 10, 13, 14}.
• Channel: a third-party mailing-list archive (seclists.org), trade press (freelanceinformer.com, bigissue.com), a newspaper site republishing a Business Wire release, and SEC filings (sec.gov) ^{1, 11, 10, 13, 14}. Upwork’s own press page and CEO blog could not be retrieved, so their dates are not established.
• Earliest and latest dated observation: 8 March 2022 for the CEO message ¹⁰; 14 March 2022 and 13 June 2022 for the later items ^{13, 14}; the FY2024 Form 10-K (filed 2025) is the latest retrieved restatement of the suspension ⁵.
• Status: the FY2023 Form 10-K says users in Russia and Belarus are prohibited from using the marketplace for the duration of the suspension, and the FY2024 Form 10-K still refers to the March 2022 decision ^{1, 5}. Status at the research date is not established from retrievable sources ⁶.
• Persistence and audience: the SEC filings are public documents addressed to investors; a duration for the public communication on Upwork’s own site cannot be established ^{1, 5}.

Market framing. The FY2023 Form 10-K describes customers in over 180 countries and “a limited physical presence outside of the United States” ¹. No public evidence identified of Upwork framing operations in Israel or the occupied territories as a unique geopolitical partnership; the filings retrieved contain no Israel-specific market framing ^{1, 2, 5, 6}. The FY2025 Form 10-K risk factors refer generally to “geopolitical instability and security risks, such as armed conflict and civil or military unrest”, to sanctions screening against Office of Foreign Assets Control lists without naming a country, and to “decisions we make relating to geopolitical or social matters” as a possible brand risk ⁶. [pre-2020] A 2012 Globes article reported that Elance, a predecessor platform, launched operations in Israel (October 2012); the article does not mention Upwork and the current status of that activity is unknown ¹⁵. Wikipedia records that Elance and oDesk announced their merger on 18 December 2013 and that the company became Upwork in 2015 ¹⁶.

Operations in Occupied or Contested Territories

Territorial presence. No public evidence identified of Upwork offices, subsidiaries, dealerships, equipment sales or service contracts in Israeli settlements or other occupied territory ^{1, 5, 17}. The FY2025 Exhibit 21.1 lists fourteen subsidiaries: Ascen Inc., Ascen Workforce Canada Inc., Ascen Workforce, LLC, Bubty B.V. (Netherlands), Elance Limited (Ireland), Elance LLC, Lifted Solutions LLC, Lifted Talent Group LLC, Payment Escrow Inc., Tallance B.V. (Netherlands), UPW Holdco, Inc., Upwork Global LLC (California), Upwork Payments Inc. and Upwork Services LLC, and none is located in Israel or a Palestinian territory ¹⁷. The FY2024 Exhibit 21.1 lists eight: Elance, Inc., Upwork Global Inc. (California), Upwork Talent Group Inc., Upwork Escrow Inc., Elance Limited (Ireland), UPW Holdco, Inc., Upwork Payments Inc. and Objective AI, Inc., and none is located in Israel ¹⁸. The FY2024 Form 10-K names Objective AI, Inc. as a company acquired in 2024 and contains no Israel reference in the portions read ⁵. Wikipedia lists headquarters in California ¹⁶.

Platform use by Palestinians (context, not a territorial operation). An Associated Press report published by Gulf News (page last updated 14 May 2026) says platforms including Freelancer.com, Upwork and Mostaql each have thousands of Gazans registered ¹⁹. The Atlantic Council brief (1 September 2026) says Upwork and Freelancer.com are the largest international platforms on which Gazan freelancers operate, describes a Gazan freelancer earning around $200 a month through Upwork, and cites an Upwork 10 percent commission plus currency-exchange fees of up to 30 percent ²⁰. [pre-2020] The same brief reports about two thousand Gazans registered on Upwork in 2018, a figure whose current status is unknown ²⁰. The 7amleh report (5 May 2026) says Palestinians “can access platforms such as Upwork and Fiverr” but that their earnings are heavily reduced by financial and infrastructure barriers and intermediary commissions, and it contains no Upwork-specific policy finding ²¹. A 7amleh policy manager’s Global Voices article (14 June 2026) states that thousands of Palestinians worked through platforms like Upwork and Fiverr before October 2023 and makes no claim that Upwork discriminates ^{22, 23}. Truthout (7 September 2026) describes Gaza freelancing conditions without naming Upwork ²⁴. No public evidence identified of an Upwork statement, or of a report of Upwork suspending Palestinian accounts, in 2025 or 2026 in the sources reviewed ^{20, 19, 21, 24}. Gaza Sky Geeks, a Mercy Corps-backed programme, launched a Freelancing Academy in 2017, and its Wikipedia page does not mention Upwork ²⁵.

Sector context from the same report. 7amleh states that PayPal and Payoneer exclude Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza while Israeli citizens, including settlers, can use them, and that Amazon and eBay reportedly give settlements service privileges; these findings concern other companies and are not findings about Upwork ^{21, 23}.

Legal and regulatory scrutiny. No public evidence identified that Upwork appears in the AFSC Investigate database; the database page retrieved lists five categories (settlement industry, natural resources, walls and checkpoints, weapons and military equipment, discrimination) and does not list Upwork or any online freelance platform ²⁶. The Who Profits database page retrieved showed only page 1 of 24 (companies beginning with “A”), so it neither confirms nor excludes an Upwork entry ²⁷. A Qatar News Agency report on the latest update of the UN human rights office’s database of businesses involved in settlement activity (dated 28 September; the URL path indicates 2026) gives 214 companies from 11 countries, 61 added and 5 removed, and names no individual company or Upwork ²⁸. That report does not itself establish whether Upwork is listed, and the database annex was not read, so no public evidence identified of an Upwork listing in the sources reviewed ²⁸. No public evidence identified of a regulatory action, court case or OECD complaint against Upwork concerning the occupied territories in the sources reviewed ^{1, 3, 26, 5, 6}.

Civil society and boycott history. No public evidence identified of a BDS or divestment campaign directed at Upwork. A “Stop the Palestinian Genocide” boycott profile of Fiverr (an advocacy source; the page carries 2026 dates) lists Upwork as a “Direct Match” alternative for buyers leaving Fiverr and summarises 7amleh’s May 2026 testing as rating Upwork accessible from Gaza and the West Bank but difficult to withdraw from ²⁹. No Upwork response to that profile is documented in the sources reviewed ²⁹.

Internal Governance, Content & Retail Policies

Employee relations. No public evidence identified of reports, controversies or legal actions concerning Upwork HR enforcement on employee speech, political symbols or union activity related to Israel-Palestine; searches for Upwork staff memos, protests or discipline returned no Upwork item and the filings retrieved are silent ^{1, 3, 4, 5, 6}. The only employee-facing reference identified is the CEO’s 7 November 2023 remark that Upwork has a very small number of team members in the region and is focused on their safety ⁸.

Platform and editorial policy. No public evidence identified of independent reports, academic studies or regulatory inquiries on Upwork algorithmic moderation or content suppression related to the conflict. The 7amleh report names Upwork only as accessible to Palestinians with income constrained by external financial and infrastructure barriers ²¹. The Global Voices article says it makes no platform-discrimination claim about Upwork ²³.

Shareholder-resolution record. The Form 8-K for the 5 June 2025 annual meeting lists three company-presented proposals (director election, auditor ratification and say-on-pay) and states that none was a stockholder proposal ³⁰. The Form 8-K for the 4 June 2026 annual meeting reports four proposals (director election, auditor ratification, say-on-pay and say-on-pay frequency) and lists no stockholder proposal ³¹. No public evidence identified of an Israel-Palestine due-diligence or human-rights shareholder resolution at Upwork, or of its suppression, in the sources reviewed ^{31, 30}.

Retail and supply chain. No public evidence identified of reports or regulatory actions about labeling, sourcing or categorising products from the region or settlements; Upwork is a services marketplace and does not sell physical goods in the retrieved descriptions ^{1, 16}.

Brand Heritage & State Partnerships

Marketing positioning. No public evidence identified of Upwork using military heritage, defense-sector ties or state-security origins in branding. Wikipedia records Elance’s founding in 1998 in Jersey City and oDesk’s founding in 2003 by two founders working between the US and Greece ¹⁶.

Institutional ties and sponsorships. No public evidence identified of state honors, hosted government officials, partnerships with Israeli state academic or governmental institutions, or sponsorship of “Brand Israel” campaigns involving Upwork ^{1, 3, 4, 5, 6}. [pre-2020] The only Israel-facing item found is the 2012 Elance launch article, which does not mention Upwork ¹⁵.

Lobbying, Advocacy, Financing & Logistics

Political lobbying. The 2024 proxy statement describes under Business Integrity “engaging on public policy to maximize opportunity for talent and create a more equitable future of work” ⁴. A press-release listing on Quantisnow titled “Upwork Appoints New Global Head of Public Policy and Government Relations” shows a headline only, with no date, name or policy content ³². No public evidence identified of Upwork lobbying, PAC giving or leadership roles in pressure groups related to Israel-Palestine, boycotts or regional trade legislation; the portion of the April 2025 proxy statement read contains no political-spending, lobbying or Israel text, and an archived ProPublica Represent page retrieved for Upwork Global Inc. contained no lobbying filings and was a July 2024 snapshot of a discontinued tool ^{7, 33}. Primary US lobbying and FEC records were not retrievable in this session, and searches for an Upwork PAC or political giving by Hayden Brown returned no record ³³.

Financial contributions. No public evidence identified of Upwork donations or sponsorships to settlement groups, parastatal bodies or military-welfare funds (IDF, FIDF, JNF, Lev Echad, reservist funds); none appear in the filings and proxies retrieved ^{1, 3, 4, 5, 6}. The documented corporate donations in the sources are the 2022 $1 million Direct Relief International contribution for Ukraine and the $100,000 in talent credits to Airbnb.org ^{10, 14}.

Crisis asset mobilisation. No public evidence identified that Upwork directed free services, credits, logistics or infrastructure to Israeli state, military or state-aligned NGO efforts. The documented mobilisation concerns Ukraine: a $100,000 team-member matching programme, product changes to help Ukrainian freelancers keep their careers, the Project Catalog scheme, and the Airbnb.org talent credits ^{11, 10, 13, 14}.

Constructive notice (post-19 July 2024 and post-November 2024). No public evidence identified of Upwork political conduct on Israel-Palestine after the ICJ advisory opinion or the ICC warrants; the FY2024 and FY2025 Forms 10-K (portions read), the 2025 and 2026 proxy statements as retrieved, and the June 2025 and June 2026 Forms 8-K contain no Israel-Palestine reference or act, and the only Upwork remark on the Middle East identified predates both events (7 November 2023) ^{5, 6, 7, 3, 30, 31, 8}.

Corporate Structure & Primary Mission

Mandate and ownership. Upwork Inc. is a Nasdaq-listed company that filed for an IPO on 3 October 2018, and Wikipedia does not name a controlling shareholder ¹⁶. The FY2023 Form 10-K reports 137,392,520 shares outstanding as of 31 January 2024 ¹. The 2024 proxy statement lists Vanguard Group at 11.4% (15,226,218 shares) and BlackRock at 7.3% (9,768,944 shares) as of 31 March 2024, and all executive officers and directors as a group (10 persons) at 7.6% ⁴. No public evidence identified of a state-held golden share or a charter mission tied to state geopolitical goals; the retrieved filings describe a commercial work marketplace ^{1, 4, 5, 6}.

Activist stake. Engine Capital sent a letter to Upwork’s board on 13 September 2024; Invezz reported that Engine had acquired a 3.5% stake, while CNBC (via NBC Bay Area) reported a roughly 4% stake ^{34, 35}. CNBC reported that the letter called for board changes, citing long tenures, business ties between directors and a lack of staffing-industry experience, urged a simpler platform, cost cuts and a larger enterprise business, and did not explicitly call for the removal of CEO Hayden Brown ³⁵. Wikipedia gives the stake as 4%, so the 4% figure matches the CNBC report and the 3.5% figure the Invezz report ^{16, 34, 35}. Neither the Invezz nor the CNBC copy is the letter or a regulatory filing, and no Israel-related demand is reported in either ^{34, 35}. Upwork’s same-day response said its board and management maintain an open dialogue with investors and cited adjusted EBITDA margins rising from (2)% to 21% over five quarters and $100 million of 2024 share repurchases ³⁶.

Group attribution. The FY2024 and FY2025 Exhibit 21.1 subsidiary lists name no Israeli or Palestinian-territory entity, and the FY2025 list shows Upwork Global LLC (California) in place of the earlier Upwork Global Inc., and Payment Escrow Inc. in place of Upwork Escrow Inc. ^{17, 18}. No public evidence identified of parent, sibling or subsidiary entities with Israel-Palestine political activity ^{1, 16, 5, 17, 18, 6}.

Executive & Leadership Footprint

Named-entity searches (one line per name; relationship; topics searched; finding).

• Upwork Inc. (target, registrant): searched against Israel, settlements, boycott, lobbying, Gaza account actions and statements; the only Israel-related act found is the CEO’s remarks on the 7 November 2023 earnings call, and the other conflict-related acts are the 2022 Ukraine/Russia/Belarus measures ^{1, 10, 8}.
• Hayden Brown (President and CEO, director since December 2019): searched for statements, social posts, internal notes, political giving and Israel-related ties, including 2024 to 2026 statements; she is the sender of the 8 March 2022 Ukraine message and the speaker of the 7 November 2023 Middle East remarks, and searched, none found on any other Israel-Palestine statement or political giving ^{10, 3, 8}. Wikipedia records she became CEO on 1 January 2020 ¹⁶.
• Erica Gessert (CFO per the earnings-call transcript): searched through the Middle East exchange; she answered the macro portion and the Middle East answer was attributed to the CEO, searched, none found for any Israel-Palestine statement ⁸.
• Thomas Layton (independent Chairperson): searched with Israel, AIPAC and Jewish-organisation terms; received 87,529,677 votes for and 18,068,666 against at the 5 June 2025 meeting; searched, none found ^{3, 30}.
• Kevin Harvey (independent director; 2.0% in the 2024 proxy table): searched with Benchmark, Israel, AIPAC and donation terms; searched, none found ^{3, 4}.
• Gregory C. Gretsch (listed at 2.1% in the 2024 proxy table; compensation committee chair until April 2024): the identity and any affiliations were not drilled into; searched, none found ^{4, 7}.
• Gary Steele (independent director since 2018; compensation committee chair per the April 2025 proxy; CEO of Shield AI per the 2026 proxy): Shield AI announced on 12 March 2025 that Steele would become its CEO, effective 13 May 2025, and join its board, with co-founder Ryan Tseng moving to President ^{37, 38}. The April 2025 proxy lists Steele as an Upwork independent director before that start date, and he was re-elected to the Upwork board on 4 June 2026 with 78,600,865 votes for and 17,127,041 against ^{7, 31}. Shield AI is the employer of an Upwork director and is not an Upwork group entity ³. A secondary OODA Loop profile says Shield AI systems are deployed in “active conflict zones such as Ukraine and Israel” and that the “Israeli Defense Forces use Nova quadcopters” ³⁹. Wikipedia’s Shield AI page does not mention Israel ⁴⁰. The earlier-noted divergence in sources on when Steele became Shield AI CEO reflects two events, the announcement on 12 March 2025 (Wikipedia’s date) and the start on 13 May 2025 (consistent with OODA Loop’s May 2025) ^{39, 40, 37}. Both events post-date the ICJ advisory opinion (19 July 2024) and the ICC warrants (November 2024) ³⁷.
• The Vanguard Group, Inc. (holder of 11.4% as of 31 March 2024): passive institutional holder; searched, none found for Israel-Palestine conduct specific to Upwork ⁴.
• BlackRock, Inc. (7.3% as of 31 March 2024): below the 10% threshold; searched, none found for Upwork-specific Israel-Palestine conduct ⁴.
• Engine Capital LP (activist, about 3.5% to 4% per the sources above): below 10%; its letter concerned strategy and board composition, with no Israel-related content reported; searched, none found ^{34, 35}.
• Objective AI, Inc. (acquired by Upwork in 2024 per the FY2024 Form 10-K; listed in the FY2024 Exhibit 21.1): the filing portion read names it only as an acquisition and contains no Israel reference; searched, none found ^{5, 18}.
• Other FY2025 subsidiaries (Ascen Inc., Ascen Workforce Canada Inc., Ascen Workforce, LLC, Bubty B.V., Elance Limited, Elance LLC, Lifted Solutions LLC, Lifted Talent Group LLC, Payment Escrow Inc., Tallance B.V., UPW Holdco, Inc., Upwork Global LLC, Upwork Payments Inc., Upwork Services LLC): listed in Exhibit 21.1 with no Israeli location; not separately searched by name, and no Israel reference appears in the 10-K portions read ^{17, 6}.
• Directors elected or re-elected in 2026 (Claire Bramley, David Lissy) and other directors named in the 2026 proxy (Dana L. Evan, Glenn Kelman): the proxy gives roles only, and no Israel-related affiliation appears in the text retrieved ^{3, 31}.

Personal philanthropy and financing. No public evidence identified of verifiable donations or foundation grants by Upwork executives or directors to Israeli advocacy groups, parastatal bodies or military-welfare funds. FEC and IRS 990 records were not retrievable in this session, so this finding rests on the proxy statements and searches ^{3, 4, 7}.

Public advocacy and statements. No public evidence identified of op-eds, social-media posts or signed letters by Hayden Brown or Thomas Layton on Israel-Palestine, including in searches covering 2024 to 2026. The conflict-related leadership statements found are the 8 March 2022 Ukraine message and the 7 November 2023 earnings-call remarks on the Middle East ^{10, 8}.

Board memberships and affiliations. The 2026 proxy lists Thomas Layton as independent Chairperson, Hayden Brown as President and CEO, and independent directors Dana L. Evan, Gary Steele (CEO of Shield AI), Glenn Kelman, Leela Srinivasan, Anilu Vazquez-Ubarri and Kevin Harvey, with Claire Bramley (CFO of Xero) and David Lissy (former CEO of Bright Horizons) as Class II nominees ³. The 4 June 2026 Form 8-K reports that Bramley and Lissy were elected and that Leela Srinivasan did not stand for re-election and Anilu Vazquez-Ubarri resigned ³¹. No public evidence identified of seats in AIPAC, CFI, USISTF or similar organisations in the text retrieved ^{3, 31}.