Microsoft has dismissed one employee and expedited the resignation of another following a rare public protest during the company’s highly anticipated 50th anniversary celebration in Redmond, according to a report by CNBC.
The incident occurred last Friday during an internal event where Microsoft unveiled new Copilot features alongside a commemoration of its five decades in business. The disruption came from two employees who separately interrupted the event to protest the company’s alleged involvement with the Israeli military through its artificial intelligence technologies.
The first protester targeted Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI, accusing him of war profiteering. Moments later, a second employee interrupted a segment featuring Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and former leaders Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer to deliver a similar message.
Microsoft responded swiftly. The company terminated one of the employees involved and adjusted the resignation timeline for the other, making their departure effective immediately, CNBC reported. Both individuals were reportedly aligned with the activist coalition No Azure for Apartheid, a group composed of Microsoft workers and other tech industry professionals. The group staged a simultaneous demonstration outside the Redmond campus.
In a Medium post, the dismissed engineer, Ibtihal Aboussad, publicly identified herself and explained her motivations. “For the past 3.5 years, I’ve worked as a software engineer on Microsoft’s AI Platform org,” she wrote. “After discovering that my team’s work was supporting what I believe to be a genocide in Palestine, I felt morally compelled to speak out.”
Aboussad further alleged that Arab, Palestinian, and Muslim employees at Microsoft have faced a culture of silencing, harassment, and intimidation when raising concerns about the company’s business ties with military organizations. She noted prior instances where employees were reportedly fired for organizing vigils.
Microsoft defended its response, telling Aboussad that there were proper internal channels available for voicing dissent and accused her of deliberately attempting to “gain notoriety and cause maximum disruption” during a high-profile corporate event.
The second protester, identified as Vaniya Agrawal, had already submitted a resignation notice effective April 11. Microsoft made that resignation effective immediately following the protest.
A company spokesperson confirmed to CNBC that one employee had resigned and another had been terminated, but declined to provide further details.
These internal protests mirror similar actions by No Azure for Apartheid earlier this year. In March, members disrupted an independent Microsoft@50 event hosted by GeekWire in Seattle. Additionally, two other group organizers, Abdo Mohamed and Hossam Nasr, previously claimed they were dismissed by Microsoft last fall for their pro-Palestinian advocacy on the Redmond campus.
As the intersection of tech and geopolitical activism continues to grow more complex, Microsoft’s handling of internal dissent is likely to remain under scrutiny from both human rights advocates and the broader tech community.
