Microsoft has fired two employees who interrupted the company’s 50th anniversary celebration to protest its work supplying artificial intelligence technology to the Israeli military, according to a group representing the workers. The protest occurred during a livestreamed event on Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington campus, attended by co-founder Bill Gates and former CEO Steve Ballmer.
The protest began when Microsoft software engineer Ibtihal Aboussad approached the stage where Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman was announcing new product features and the company’s AI ambitions. Aboussad shouted at Suleyman, “You claim that you care about using AI for good but Microsoft sells AI weapons to the Israeli military. Fifty-thousand people have died and Microsoft powers this genocide in our region.” The protest forced Suleyman to pause his talk, during which he attempted to de-escalate the situation by saying, “Thank you for your protest, I hear you.”
Aboussad continued her protest, stating that Suleyman and “all of Microsoft” had blood on their hands, and threw a keffiyeh scarf, a symbol of support for Palestinian people, onto the stage before being escorted out. A second protester, Microsoft employee Vaniya Agrawal, interrupted a later part of the event.
Microsoft accused Aboussad of misconduct in a termination letter, stating that she made “hostile, unprovoked, and highly inappropriate accusations” against Suleyman and the company. Agrawal, who had already given her two weeks’ notice, was told to leave immediately, five days before her scheduled departure date.
The incident was the most public protest over Microsoft’s work with Israel, though not the first. In February, five Microsoft employees were ejected from a meeting with CEO Satya Nadella for protesting the contracts. The protests follow revelations that AI models from Microsoft and OpenAI were used in an Israeli military program to select bombing targets during recent conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon.
Microsoft stated that it provides avenues for employees to voice concerns but expects them to do so without causing business disruptions. The company faced similar protests at Google last year, where dozens of workers were fired after internal protests over a $1.2 billion contract with the Israeli government known as Project Nimbus.
