{"id":40731,"date":"2025-04-08T03:29:56","date_gmt":"2025-04-08T08:29:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=40731"},"modified":"2025-04-08T03:30:16","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T08:30:16","slug":"microsoft-terminates-jobs-of-engineers-who-protested-use-of-ai-products-by-israels-military","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=40731","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft terminates jobs of engineers who protested use of AI products by Israel\u2019s military"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Microsoft<\/a> terminated the employment of two software engineers who protested<\/a> at company events on Friday over the Israeli military\u2019s use of the company\u2019s artificial intelligence products, according to documents viewed by CNBC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ibtihal Aboussad, a software engineer in the company\u2019s AI division who is based in Canada, was fired on Monday over \u201cjust cause, wilful misconduct, disobedience or wilful neglect of duty,\u201d according to one of the documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another Microsoft software engineer, Vaniya Agrawal, had said she would resign from the company on Friday, April 11. But Microsoft terminated her role on Monday, according to an internal message viewed by CNBC. The company wrote that it \u201chas decided to make your resignation immediately effective today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both employees chose Microsoft\u2019s 50th anniversary event to publicly voice their criticism. What Microsoft had hoped would be a celebratory period has turned into a brutal few days for the company, which is being hit, along with the rest of the market, by President Donald Trump\u2019s widespread tariffs. It\u2019s a topic that CEO Satya Nadella and his two predecessors, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, were forced to uncomfortably confront<\/a> on Friday in an interview with CNBC\u2019s Andrew Ross Sorkin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs a Microsoft shareholder, this kind of thing is not good,\u201d Ballmer said, about the tariffs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the celebration itself captured headlines more for the protesters\u2019 shared message than for Microsoft\u2019s half-century of accomplishments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Microsoft didn\u2019t immediately provide a comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first interruption on Friday came from Aboussad, who stood up during Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman\u2019s speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMustafa, shame on you,\u201d Aboussad said as she walked towards the stage at the event in Redmond, Washington. \u201cYou claim that you care for 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aboussad also called Suleyman a \u201cwar profiteer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou have blood on your hands,\u201d she said before being swiftly escorted out. \u201cAll of Microsoft has blood on its hands.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortly after the interruption, Aboussad sent an email, which was viewed by CNBC, to Suleyman and other Microsoft executives, including CEO Satya Nadella, finance chief Amy Hood, operating chief Carolina Dybeck Happe and Brad Smith, the company\u2019s president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI spoke up today because after learning that my org was powering the genocide of my people in Palestine, I saw no other moral choice,\u201d Aboussad wrote in the email. \u201cThis is especially true when I\u2019ve witnessed how Microsoft has tried to quell and suppress any dissent from my coworkers who tried to raise this issue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aboussad continued in the email, \u201cI did not sign up to write code that violates human rights,\u201d adding a link to a \u201cNo Azure for Apartheid<\/a>\u201d petition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Microsoft wrote in the internal message that Aboussad\u2019s email to executives served as \u201can admission that you deliberately and willfully engaged in your earlier misconduct.\u201d The company also said that Abousssad could have raised concerns \u201cconfidentially with your manager, or with Global Employee Relations. Instead, you chose to intentionally disrupt the speech of Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The document went on to say that Microsoft \u201chas concluded that your misconduct was designed to gain notoriety and cause maximum disruption to this highly anticipated event.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cImmediate cessation of your employment is the only appropriate response,\u201d Microsoft wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a separate Microsoft event with executives on Friday, Agrawal interrupted a speech from Nadella with a similar protest and sent an email to executives afterward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou may have seen me stand up earlier today to call out Satya during his speech at the Microsoft 50th anniversary,\u201d Agrawal wrote in the email, which was viewed by CNBC, on Friday. \u201cOver the past 1.5 years, I\u2019ve grown more aware of Microsoft\u2019s growing role in the military-industrial complex.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Agrawal wrote that Microsoft is \u201ccomplicit\u201d as a \u201cdigital weapons manufacturer that powers surveillance, apartheid, and genocide,\u201d adding that \u201cby working for this company, we are all complicit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Microsoft spokesperson said Friday that the company is committed to adhering to the highest standards of business practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe provide many avenues for all voices to be heard. 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,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nbcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Microsoft terminated the employment of two software engineers who protested at company events on Friday over the Israeli military\u2019s use of the company\u2019s artificial intelligence products, according to documents viewed by CNBC. Ibtihal Aboussad, a software engineer in the company\u2019s AI division who is based in Canada, was fired on Monday over \u201cjust cause, wilful misconduct, disobedience or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":40732,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5783],"tags":[4149,5604,1972,2109,32914],"class_list":["post-40731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sci-tech","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-dismissal","tag-microsoft","tag-protest","tag-software-engineer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40731"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40733,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40731\/revisions\/40733"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}