Microsoft has terminated two employees who disrupted the company’s 50th anniversary celebration to protest its provision of artificial intelligence technology to the Israeli military. According to a workers’ advocacy group, Microsoft accused one of the employees, Ibtihal Aboussad, of misconduct aimed at gaining attention and causing disruption. The other employee, Vaniya Agrawal, had already announced her resignation but was asked to leave five days early.
The protest occurred during a major event where Microsoft’s AI CEO, Mustafa Suleyman, was unveiling new product features and the company’s long-term AI vision. Aboussad, a software engineer based in Toronto, approached the stage and loudly criticized Microsoft’s involvement in supporting Israeli military operations, citing the death toll in the region. She also threw a keffiyeh scarf—a symbol of Palestinian solidarity—onto the stage before being escorted out. Agrawal interrupted another part of the event shortly after.
Microsoft stated that Suleyman responded calmly, acknowledging the protest without escalating the situation. The company’s termination letter to Aboussad argued that she could have raised her concerns through official channels instead of disrupting the event. It described her actions as hostile and inappropriate, stating they required security intervention.
Both employees had been involved with No Azure for Apartheid, a group protesting Microsoft’s Azure cloud services contract with Israel. An earlier investigation revealed that Microsoft and OpenAI’s AI models had been used in Israeli military programs to assist in selecting bombing targets during conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon.
Microsoft’s statement emphasized the importance of addressing concerns constructively without disrupting business operations. This incident follows other protests within major tech companies, including Google, where employees were fired after demonstrating against a $1.2 billion contract with the Israeli government, known as Project Nimbus. Those Google workers later filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board in an effort to regain their positions.
