For the second time in the last month, Microsoft employees disrupted high-level executives speaking at an event celebrating the company’s 50th anniversary on 4 April, in protest against the company’s role in Israel’s ongoing siege on Gaza.
The AI executive Mustafa Suleyman was interrupted by the employees Ibtihal Aboussad and Vaniya Agrawal.
The two were fired within days. The Microsoft president, Brad Smith, and the former CEO Steve Ballmer were shouted down at Seattle’s Great Hall on 20 March by a current and former employee.
The March event was preceded by a rally outside that also included current and former employees of the tech giant.
Protesters projected a sign on to the hall’s wall saying: “Microsoft powers genocide” – a reference to Israel’s extensive use of the company’s AI and cloud computing services since 7 October 2023, as “the IDF’s insatiable demand for bombs was matched by its need for greater access to cloud computing services,” the Guardian reported.
The rally and disruption were the latest of a growing number of protests in which employees at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington state, have urged the company to cut ties with Israel, after discontent around the issue among some of them simmered for a year-plus on company message boards, in emails and on calls with what the company calls “workplace conflict” team members.
Taken together, the protests suggest that more will follow, as well as employees deciding to leave the company altogether, according to present and past employees who spoke to the Guardian. Microsoft did not reply to a request for comment.
The series of events echoes those at other tech companies, including Google, where employees have likewise protested against the company’s ties to Israel and been fired.
In February, Google changed its AI guidelines, removing commitments not to use artificial intelligence for surveillance or weapons.
The former Microsoft software engineer Hossam Nasr described the situation at the company as “very close to a tipping point”. He highlighted the recent events, a 24 February demonstration at the company’s first in-person town hall since early in the pandemic and a 24 October lunchtime vigil for the tens of thousands of Palestinians that Israel has killed in the last 18 months, as examples of rising discontent.
The February demonstration was short-lived: as the Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, began talking up new products, five employees stood on a platform above, exposing lettering on their T-shirts that spelled out the words: “Does Our Code Kill Kids, Satya?” Within minutes, several men quietly ushered them out of the room. As for the October rally, Nasr and researcher and the data scientist Abdo Mohamed helped organize the event; both were fired shortly afterward.
The dismissals, together with a spate of recent, in-depth articles about Microsoft’s role in Israel’s siege on Gaza, have helped galvanize those in the company who are concerned about the issue, according to Nasr, the former employee Aboussad, and two current employees who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation.
Aboussad told the Guardian she had grown increasingly conflicted in recent months as a software engineer working in AI. After several years at the company, she said, recent reporting “showed [me] more and more Microsoft’s deep ties to the Israeli government”. An AP report on the use of US-made AI in Gaza, including Microsoft’s, was the “last straw because it showed that AI is being used to target and murder Palestinians … I began thinking, there’s no way I can stay at Microsoft and have clean hands,” Aboussad said.
The software engineer said it was impossible to know if her work was deployed in Gaza, since the company “anonymizes” all contracts with the Israeli government. At the same time, she said: “I’m not confident my paycheck doesn’t originate from money that comes from the Israeli government.”