Microsoft Dismisses Employees Over Protests Against AI Support for Israel

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Microsoft has fired two employees, Ibtihal Aboussal and Vaniya Agrawal, for raising objections during the company's 50th anniversary event on Friday, April 4, 2025. Citing The Verge, the two employees accused the company of supporting artificial intelligence or AI for Israel, which is engaged in genocide.

As quoted from The Verge on Tuesday, April 8, 2025, the Microsoft employees also sent emails to thousands of colleagues, calling on Microsoft to terminate its contracts with the Israeli government.

During the event, Microsoft's AI Chief Executive Officer, Mustafa Suleyman, was delivering a speech to the audience. Aboussal, a software engineer, then approached the left side of the stage and voiced her protest to the company's leadership, referring to it as a "war profiteer" and demanding that Microsoft stop using AI for genocide.

The second employee, Vaniya Agrawal, an engineer like Aboussal, also protested directly during the subsequent part of the event. At that time, a question-and-answer session involving CEO Satya Nadella and former CEOs Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer happened. She stated that 50,000 Palestinians in Gaza died due to Microsoft's technology.

Following that, Microsoft management sent Aboussal an e-mail informing her of her dismissal for "misconduct." Subsequently, Vaniya was also fired after opposing the company's collaboration with Israel.

“It is also concerning that you have not apologized to the company, and in fact you have shown no remorse for the effect that your actions have had and will have," as quoted from the email to Aboussal, sent by Microsoft management, The Verge reported.

The Verge has attempted to confirm the dismissal of its two employees, but the technology company has not responded. From the video recordings uploaded to Microsoft's YouTube account, there are no direct video recordings when the two employees interrupting the company's leadership speech. Their comment section was also disabled in the video welcoming speech by CEO Microsoft Satya Nadella.

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