Brian Eno Challenges Microsoft on Israel Partnership, Pledges Windows 95 Chime Fee to Gaza Victims
The post Brian Eno Challenges Microsoft on Israel Partnership, Pledges Windows 95 Chime Fee to Gaza Victims appeared first on Consequence.
Brian Eno is leveraging his historical ties to Microsoft to urge the company to cease providing AI technology and cloud services to the Israeli Ministry of Defense. In a significant further step, he has also pledged to donate the fees he received for composing the Windows 95 startup sound to victims of Israel's attacks on Gaza.
'Today, I'm compelled to speak, not as a composer this time, but as a citizen alarmed by the role Microsoft is playing in a very different kind of composition: one that leads to surveillance, violence, and destruction in Palestine,' Eno wrote in an open letter posted to Instagram on Wednesday, May 21st. 'In a blog post dated May 15, 2025, Microsoft acknowledged that it provides Israel's Ministry of Defense with 'software, professional services, Azure cloud services and Azure AI services, including language translation.''
Eno continued, 'These 'services' support a regime that is engaged in actions described by leading legal scholars and human rights organisations, United Nations experts, and increasing numbers of governments from around the world, as genocidal. The collaboration between Microsoft and the Israeli government and army is no secret and involves the company's software being used in lethal technologies with 'funny' names like 'Where's Daddy?' (guidance systems for tracking Palestinians in order to blow them up in their homes).'
'Selling and facilitating advanced AI and cloud services to a government engaged in systematic ethnic cleansing is not 'business as usual.' It is complicity,' he added, pointing out that corporations like Microsoft 'often command more influence' than governments. 'I believe that with such a power comes an absolute ethical responsibility. Accordingly, I call on Microsoft to suspend all services that support any operations that contribute to violations of international law.'
Turning his attention to the 'brave' Microsoft workers who have 'refused to stay silent' about the partnership, Eno praised them for 'risking their livelihoods for people who have lost and will continue to lose their lives. I invite artists, technologists, musicians, and all people of conscience to join me in this call.'
After pledging the fee he originally received for composing the Windows 95 chime 'towards helping the victims of the attacks on Gaza,' Eno ended his open letter by proclaiming, 'If a sound can signal a real change then let it be this one.'
Microsoft acknowledged its partnership with the Israeli military several months after The Associated Press published a report detailing how the company's Azure cloud servers and AI technology were being used to select targets in Israel's attacks on Gaza and Lebanon. In an unsigned blog post published on May 15th, Microsoft stated it had found 'no evidence to date' that its services have been used to 'target or harm people in the conflict in Gaza.'
In early April, Eno's Windows 95 chime was inducted into the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry as a 'culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant' piece of recorded music. Now, it has potentially taken on even more profound historical significance.
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