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India Today
27-05-2025
- Business
- India Today
Microsoft fires employee who interrupted CEO Satya Nadella at Build to protest company's Israel business
Microsoft has fired the employee who disrupted CEO Satya Nadella's speech during the Microsoft Build 2025 event last week. The employee, Joe Lopez, who was a firmware engineer in Azure Hardware Systems and Infrastructure (AHSI), had interrupted Nadella's speech saying: 'Satya, how about you show how Microsoft is killing Palestinians?' 'How about you show how Israeli war crimes are powered by Azure?' He was escorted out of the event immediately after this. advertisementLopez's pro-Palestine protest at the event was followed by a number of other disruptions at the Build 2025 event. According to a report by the Associated Press, at least three addresses during the event were disrupted by pro-Palestine protests. Reportedly, protesters also gathered outside the Build 2025 venue in Seattle. Soon after being escorted out of the event, Lopez also sent out a mass email to his colleagues explaining why he interrupted the event and disputing Microsoft's claims of how Azure is being used in Gaza. He says that as one of the 'largest companies in the world, Microsoft has immeasurable power to do the right thing'. He wrote that the company has the power to 'demand an end to this senseless tragedy'. 'I can no longer stand by in silence as Microsoft continues to facilitate Israel's ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people,' Lopez wrote. advertisement'Microsoft openly admitted to allowing the Israel Ministry of Defence 'special access to our technologies beyond the terms of our commercial agreements'. Do you really believe that this 'special access' was allowed only once? What sort of 'special access' do they really need? And what are they doing with it,' Lopez added in the the email, Lopez also addressed Microsoft's recent blog post where the company claims that it conducted an internal audit which found 'no evidence to date that Microsoft's Azure and AI technologies have been used to target or harm people in the conflict in Gaza'.Lopez said that Microsoft's statement 'falls far short of what we are demanding. Non-transparent audits into our cloud operations in Israel (conducted by no other than Microsoft itself and an unnamed external entity) that declare no wrongdoing by the company do not give me any sense of relief. In fact, this response has further compelled me to speak out'. 'We don't need an internal audit to know that a top Azure customer is committing crimes against humanity. We see it live on the internet every day,' his email disruption questioning Microsoft's work with Israel military wasn't the first instance that a company's employee has done a public protest. In April, Indian-origin Vaniya Agrawal interrupted Satya Nadella, Steve Ballmer, and Bill Gates at the company's 50th anniversary celebration over the company's alleged involvement in Israel's war on Gaza. 'It is undeniable that Microsoft's Azure cloud offerings and AI developments form the technological backbone of Israel's automated apartheid and genocide systems,' she wrote in a a day before Agrawal's protest, another Microsoft engineer, Ibtihal Aboussad, had disrupted Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman's speech at the Microsoft AI event saying, 'Mustafa, shame on you'.Both of them were fired. Last week, Microsoft reportedly quietly started filtering internal emails that contain words like 'Palestine,' 'Gaza,' and 'genocide,' to prevent any conversation around these topics being circulated on the company's Exchange servers.
India Today
22-05-2025
- Business
- India Today
Microsoft bans word Palestine in internal emails, Windows 95 chime creator slams company for Israel ties
Microsoft has been facing mounting criticism over its alleged ties to Israel's military. And some of its most vocal critics are its own employees. In 2025 alone, there have been at least three instances of Microsoft staff speaking out against the company's involvement with the Israeli military. In a recent blog post, Microsoft attempted to address the concerns, claiming there is no evidence that its technology is being used to harm or kill people in Gaza. And the latest reported step taken by the company appears to be censorship. Microsoft has reportedly quietly begun filtering internal emails that contain terms such as 'Palestine,' 'Gaza,' and 'genocide,' preventing them from reaching recipients on the company's Exchange alleged email block was revealed by No Azure for Apartheid, a group of pro-Palestinian Microsoft employees, who claim the filter was activated shortly after the company's flagship developer conference, Microsoft Build 2025, was disrupted by an Azure engineer on Monday. While variations like 'Israel' or 'P4lestine' reportedly pass through unblocked, staff say the ban is evidence of growing restrictions on internal dissent. Windows 95 chime creator joins criticsAdding to the growing backlash, musician and artist Brian Eno (who is popularly known for composing the startup chime for Windows 95) has publicly criticised the company for its role in 'surveillance, violence, and destruction in Palestine'. In an Instagram post, Eno urged Microsoft to 'suspend all services that support any operations that contribute to violations of international law'. 'I gladly took on the [Windows 95] project as a creative challenge and enjoyed the interaction with my contacts at the company,' Eno wrote. 'I never would have believed that the same company could one day be implicated in the machinery of oppression and war.'advertisementEno particularly condemned Microsoft's contracts with Israel's Ministry of Defense, which the company last week in a blog post. Microsoft maintains that there is no evidence to suggest its tools have been used to target civilians in Palestine, but this has done little to ease concerns among critics. Protests by Microsoft employeesMicrosoft has recently seen a string of protests from its employees. During CEO Satya Nadella's keynote speech at Build 2025 event on Monday, a company engineer, Joe Lopez, interrupted the session to accuse Microsoft of complicity in Israel's military actions. 'Satya, how about you show how Microsoft is killing Palestinians?' Lopez shouted from the audience, before being escorted out. Lopez, a firmware engineer with Microsoft's Azure Hardware Systems and Infrastructure (AHSI) division, followed up with an internal email shared on Medium. 'I can no longer stand by in silence as Microsoft continues to facilitate Israel's ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people,' he wrote, citing internal documents that allegedly show the company began pitching its services to the Israeli military days after the October 7, 2023 attacks. 'Microsoft openly admitted to allowing the Israel Ministry of Defence 'special access to our technologies beyond the terms of our commercial agreements',' Lopez wrote in his email. 'Do you really believe that this 'special access' was allowed only once?'advertisementA recent report by Drop Site claims that the Israeli military has become one of Microsoft's top 500 global customers. In response to scrutiny, Microsoft recently published a blog post stating that it had conducted a third-party review and found 'no evidence' that its technology had been used to harm civilians in Gaza. However, Lopez dismissed the findings as 'non-transparent audits' conducted in part by Microsoft itself. He added: 'We don't need an internal audit to know that a top Azure customer is committing crimes against humanity. We see it live on the internet every day.'Lopez is not the only employee to confront leadership over Microsoft's involvement in the Gaza conflict. Last month, Vaniya Agrawal, a US-based employee, interrupted the company's 50th anniversary event in front of top executives including Satya Nadella, Steve Ballmer, and Bill Gates.'It is undeniable that Microsoft's Azure cloud offerings and AI developments form the technological backbone of Israel's automated apartheid and genocide systems,' she wrote in a public engineer, Ibtihal Aboussad, disrupted a Microsoft AI event just a day earlier, calling out Microsoft's AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman with the words: 'Mustafa, shame on you.'
Mint
20-05-2025
- Business
- Mint
Microsoft employee interrupts Satya Nadella's keynote to protest Gaza ties, says, ‘Microsoft is killing Palestinians!'
A Microsoft employee interrupted CEO Satya Nadella's keynote address at the company's annual Build conference on Monday, accusing the tech giant of supporting Israeli military operations through its cloud services, reported India Today. As per the report, the protestor, identified as Joe Lopez, a firmware engineer with Azure Hardware Systems and Infrastructure (AHSI), has been with Microsoft for four years. During Nadella's speech, Lopez stood up and shouted, 'Satya, how about you show how Microsoft is killing Palestinians?' He further accused the company of enabling Israeli war crimes through its Azure cloud platform. Security personnel swiftly escorted him out of the venue. Shortly after the disruption, Lopez circulated an internal email—also published on Medium—explaining the motivations behind his public protest. 'I can no longer stand by in silence as Microsoft continues to facilitate Israel's ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people,' he wrote, criticising the company's response to concerns about its involvement in the Gaza conflict. Reportedly, Lopez's comments were directed at a recent Microsoft blog post, where the firm stated that an internal review—assisted by an unnamed third-party firm—found 'no evidence to date' that Microsoft technologies had been used to harm civilians in Gaza. The employee, however, dismissed the findings, calling the audit 'non-transparent' and 'self-serving'. 'Microsoft openly admitted to allowing the Israel Ministry of Defence 'special access to our technologies beyond the terms of our commercial agreements,'' Lopez added. 'Do you really believe that this 'special access' was allowed only once?' He further claimed that the company need not rely on internal assessments when the broader implications of its partnerships were visible daily. 'We don't need an internal audit to know that a top Azure customer is committing crimes against humanity. We see it live on the internet every day,' he said. The report adds that Lopez called on Microsoft to take a stronger moral stance. 'As one of the largest companies in the world, Microsoft has immeasurable power to do the right thing,' he wrote, warning that public trust was eroding and that 'boycotts will increase' if the company does not act. This is not the first time Microsoft employees have raised concerns about the company's role in the conflict. Last month, Vaniya Agrawal, an Indian-origin staff member, confronted Nadella along with former executives Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates at a 50th anniversary celebration, denouncing the firm's cloud infrastructure as integral to what she called Israel's 'automated apartheid and genocide systems'. Just a day earlier, another engineer, Ibtihal Aboussad, disrupted a company AI event during a speech by AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman, exclaiming: 'Mustafa, shame on you.' The spate of internal protests highlights growing unrest among Microsoft staff over the company's operations and partnerships in regions of conflict. Microsoft has yet to respond publicly to the latest protest.
India Today
20-05-2025
- Business
- India Today
Microsoft engineer interrupts CEO Satya Nadella's keynote speech, says Microsoft is killing Palestinians
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's keynote speech at the Microsoft Build event on Monday was interrupted by an employee who accused the company of 'killing Palestinians'. The employee, who has been identified as Joe Lopez, is a firmware engineer under Azure Hardware Systems and Infrastructure (AHSI) and has been with the company for the past four years. During Nadella's speech, Lopez yelled, 'Satya, how about you show how Microsoft is killing Palestinians?' 'How about you show how Israeli war crimes are powered by Azure?' he added. Lopez was escorted out of the event immediately the Microsoft employee did not stop at that. Soon after, he sent an internal email where he wrote about why he decided to disrupt the event with a pro-Palestinian protest. 'I can no longer stand by in silence as Microsoft continues to facilitate Israel's ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people,' Lopez wrote in his email that has been published on protest comes just days after Microsoft published a blog post where it says that it conducted an internal review, along with support from a third-party firm, and that, according to its research, there was 'no evidence to date that Microsoft's Azure and AI technologies have been used to target or harm people in the conflict in Gaza'. Lopez also addresses this blog post in his email. He says 'their [Microsoft's] statement falls far short of what we are demanding. Non-transparent audits into our cloud operations in Israel (conducted by no other than Microsoft itself and an unnamed external entity) that declare no wrongdoing by the company do not give me any sense of relief. In fact, this response has further compelled me to speak out'.advertisement'Microsoft openly admitted to allowing the Israel Ministry of Defense 'special access to our technologies beyond the terms of our commercial agreements'. Do you really believe that this 'special access' was allowed only once? What sort 'special access' do they really need? And what are they doing with it,' he adds.'We don't need an internal audit to know that a top Azure customer is committing crimes against humanity. We see it live on the internet every day,' his email further says that 'as one of the largest companies in the world, Microsoft has immeasurable power to do the right thing'. He says that the company has the power to 'demand an end to this senseless tragedy'.Lopez warns: 'The boycotts will increase and our [Microsoft's] image will continue to spiral into disrepair.'This isn't the first pro-Palestine protest heard from inside the company. Just last month, Indian-origin Vaniya Agrawal confronted Satya Nadella, Steve Ballmer, and Bill Gates at the company's 50th anniversary celebration over the company's alleged involvement in Israel's war on Gaza. 'It is undeniable that Microsoft's Azure cloud offerings and AI developments form the technological backbone of Israel's automated apartheid and genocide systems,' she wrote in a a day before Agrawal's protest, another Microsoft engineer, Ibtihal Aboussad, had disrupted the Microsoft AI event during the company's AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman's speech saying, 'Mustafa, shame on you'.
