Microsoft Fires 2 Engineers Who Protested Tech Company’s Israeli Military AI Contracts

Microsoft fired Ibtihal Aboussad and Vaniya Agrawal on Monday after the two software engineers protested the tech company’s work with the Israeli military during events for the company’s 5oth anniversary on Friday, TheWrap has learned.

The Microsoft employee group No Azure for Apartheid, which advocates for the termination of all Azure contracts and partnerships with the Israeli military and government, commented on the terminations Monday, writing, “Ibtihal Aboussad and Vaniya Agrawal have both been officially fired by Microsoft over call for disrupting the shameful Microsoft 50th anniversary.”

In her act of protest, Aboussad, who worked for Microsoft’s artificial intelligence division, walked onstage while Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman was speaking at the tech company’s Redmond, Washington, headquarters.

“Mustafa, shame on you,” Aboussad shouted. “You claim that you care for 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.”

She continued: “You have blood on your hands. All of Microsoft has blood on its hands.”

Termination documents indicate that Aboussad was fired for “just cause, wilful misconduct, disobedience or willful neglect of duty,” according to reporting from CNBC.

After Aboussad appeared onstage Friday she emailed a number of Microsoft executives including Suleyman, CEO Satya Nadella, President Brad Smith, COO Carolina Dybeck Happe and CFO Amy Hood.

“I spoke up today because after learning that my org was powering the genocide of my people in Palestine, I saw no other moral choice,” she wrote in the email. “This is especially true when I’ve witnessed how Microsoft has tried to quell and suppress any dissent from my coworkers who tried to raise this issue. For the past year and a half, our Arab, Palestinian, and Muslim community at Microsoft has been silenced, intimidated, harassed, and doxxed, with impunity from Microsoft. Attempts at speaking up at best fell on deaf ears, and at worst, led to the firing of two employees for simply holding a vigil.”

Agrawal also disrupted the Friday event, shouting over speakers Bill Gates, former CEO Steve Ballmer and current CEO Satya Nadella while they were on stage.

“Shame on you all. You’re all hypocrites. Fifty thousand Palestinians in Gaza have been murdered with Microsoft technology,” she said. “How dare you. Shame on all of you for celebrating in their blood. Cut ties with Israel.”

Afterward, Agrawal tendered her resignation via email, effective Friday, and documented the exchange in a Medium post published Sunday. In Monday correspondence with Agrawal, the company terminated her and decided to “make your resignation immediately effective today,” according to CNBC.

“As time goes on, I find it more and more difficult to continue giving my time, energy, and care to a company that is on the wrong side of history,” she wrote in the letter. “Leaving my job at Microsoft has become the obvious choice for me, and I see no alternative but to use my last few days at Microsoft to speak up however I can, whether by disrupting Satya’s talk, or by sending this email today. Microsoft leadership must divest from Israel and stop selling lethal technology to power apartheid and genocide.”

A spokesperson for Microsoft maintained in an email to TheWrap that Agrawal resigned and Aboussad was “let go.” The individual declined additional request for comment.

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