Microsoft has terminated two workers who protested against the company’s alleged ties to the Israeli military during an event marking its 50th anniversary.
Ibtihal Aboussad was dismissed on Monday, April 7, for “misconduct “designed to gain notoriety and cause maximum disruption to this highly anticipated event.” The other employee, Vaniya Agrawal, had already submitted her resignation on April 11, which the company accepted, five days early.
Aboussad and Agarwal disrupted Microsoft’s 50th anniversary event when the company’s AI chief executive officer, Mustafa Suleyman, spoke. “You claim that you care about 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,” Aboussad screamed at the event.
The protest forced Suleyman to pause his talk while it was being livestreamed from Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, Washington. “Thank you for your protest, I hear you,” he said.
Aboussad continued shouting that Suleyman and “all of Microsoft” had blood on their hands. She also threw onto the stage a keffiyeh scarf, which has become a symbol of support for Palestinian people, before being escorted out of the event.
Agrawal interrupted a later part of the event.
Among the participants were Microsoft’s co-founder Bill Gates and former CEO Steve Ballmer.
Fired for misconduct: Microsoft
In its termination letter, Microsoft told Aboussad she could have raised her concerns confidentially to a manager. Instead, it said she made “hostile, unprovoked, and highly inappropriate accusations” against Suleyman and the company and that her “conduct was so aggressive and disruptive that you had to be escorted out of the room by security.”
Agrawal had already given her two weeks’ notice and was preparing to leave the company on April 11, but on Monday, a manager emailed that Microsoft “has decided to make your resignation immediately effective today.”
Microsoft’s statement
Microsoft issued a statement claiming the company encourages freedom of speech. “We 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. We are committed to ensuring our business practices uphold the highest standards,” read the statement.
Not the first termination
It was the most public but not the first protest over Microsoft’s work with Israel. In February, five Microsoft employees were ejected from a meeting with CEO Satya Nadella for protesting the contracts.
Last year, dozens of Google workers were fired after internal protests over a contract it also has with the Israeli government. Employee sit-ins at Google offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California, targeted a USD 1.2 billion deal known as Project Nimbus, providing AI technology to the Israeli government.
The Google workers later filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board in an attempt to get their jobs back.
