On Monday, Microsoft reportedly fired two software engineers, Ibtihal Aboussad and Vaniya Agrawal, who protested reports of the company’s ties to the Israeli military during an event marking Microsoft’s 50th anniversary last week, which focused on the Copilot program.
According to an internal memo seen by CNBC, Microsoft wrote that Aboussad could have raised his concerns “in confidence with your manager or with Global Employee Relations. Instead, you chose to deliberately disrupt Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleiman’s speech.”
Last Friday, during the event, Aboussad shouted that Suleiman had “blood on his hands” after interrupting him during a presentation on new AI products. Later that day, Agrawal interrupted a discussion during a panel featuring Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, former CEO Steve Ballmer, and company founder Bill Gates, exclaiming: “Shame on you all… Cut ties with Israel”.
Shortly after the incidents, Aboussad sent an email to Microsoft employees and management claiming that the company had silenced some dissenting employees, CNBC reported. The email reportedly contained a link to a petition from No Azure for Apartheid, a group of Microsoft employees who have made headlines in the past for their protests against the company’s cooperation with Israel.
