Microsoft Sacks Employee Who Interrupted Satya Nadella's Speech

A Microsoft employee who interrupted a speech by CEO Satya Nadella has been fired. Software engineer Joe Lopez shouted in protest against the tech giant for supplying the Israeli military with technology that has been allegedly used in the war in Gaza, according to a report in New York Post.

Mr Nadella was on the stage for a few minutes when Lopez started shouting, “Free Palestine!” but the latter continued his keynote, ignoring the protester.

“Satya, how about you show how Microsoft is killing Palestinians. How about you show how Israeli war crimes are powered by Azure?” Lopez could be heard shouting before being ushered out of a hall inside the Seattle conference centre.

Shortly after Lopez’s interruption, he sent an email to thousands of Microsoft employees, telling them he was “shocked by the silence” of the leadership. He also disputed the company’s claims about how its Azure cloud computing platform was used in Gaza.

“Leadership rejects our claims that Azure technology is being used to target or harm civilians in Gaza,” said Lopez in the email.

Lopez is not the only engineer to call out Microsoft for its policies. Former Microsoft engineer Vaniya Agrawal and fellow ex-employee Hossam Nasr also interrupted a session on AI security during the Build 2025 conference.

Ms Agrawal, who was fired shortly after her April protest, has become a visible face of tech-sector dissent, sharing ongoing protest imagery from Build 2025 on social media.

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Did Microsoft help Israel?

In a recent blog post, Microsoft stated it had provided the Israeli military with software, professional services, Azure cloud storage, and Azure AI services, including language translation. According to the company, these services were used to aid in efforts to locate and rescue Israeli hostages.

Microsoft also emphasised that it had significant oversight and approved some requests while denying others. The tech giant said it did not find any evidence that its Azure platform and AI technologies were used to target or harm people in Gaza,

Microsoft’s involvement in the conflict has raised concerns among human rights groups, who worry that AI systems can be flawed and prone to errors, potentially leading to the deaths of innocent people.