Two Microsoft employees have been fired after publicly protesting the company’s contracts with the Israeli military.
The employees disrupted the technology giant’s 50th anniversary celebration, shouting over Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman’s speech.
“You claim that you care about using AI for good but Microsoft sells AI weapons to the Israeli military,” software engineer Ibtihal Aboussad said. “Fifty-thousand people have died and Microsoft powers this genocide in our region.”
No Azure for Apartheid, a group opposed to the sale of Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing software to Israel, said both Aboussad and Vaniya Agrawal were fired over their protests. Agrawal interrupted the event after Aboussad.
The two women already planned to leave the company before their disruptions, according to No Azure for Apartheid.
In an email to Microsoft employees, Agrawal wrote that “it is undeniable that Microsoft’s Azure cloud offerings and AI developments form the technology backbone of Israel’s automatic apartheid and genocide systems.”
In a termination letter to Aboussad, Microsoft accused her of making “hostile, unprovoked, and highly inappropriate accusations” and said she was being fired in part because her “conduct was so aggressive and disruptive that you had to be escorted out of the room by security,” according to the Associated Press.
The AP revealed earlier this year that “select bombing targets during the recent wars in Gaza and Lebanon” have been determined using AI models from Microsoft and OpenAI.
Microsoft told the AP it has “many avenues for all voices to be heard,” but said “importantly, we ask that this be done in a way that does not cause a business disruption.”
“If that happens, we ask participants to relocate. We are committed to ensuring our business practices uphold the highest standards,” the company added.