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Two Microsoft engineers who spoke out against the company’s work with the Israeli military were fired earlier this week. Their actions follow a wave of criticism around Microsoft’s involvement in military AI projects, particularly after the October 7 Hamas attacks, which triggered a sharp increase in Israel’s use of AI in combat.
The firings came just days after the engineers voiced their concerns at company events. One of them, Ibtihal Aboussad, interrupted Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman during the company’s 50th-anniversary celebration in Redmond, Washington. Her message was direct: “Mustafa, shame on you. 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.” As she was escorted out, she added, “You have blood on your hands. All of Microsoft has blood on its hands.”
In internal messages reviewed by CNBC, Microsoft told Aboussad her termination was due to “just cause, wilful misconduct, disobedience or wilful neglect of duty.” The company objected to the public nature of her protest and argued that she could have raised her concerns confidentially. “Instead, you chose to intentionally disrupt the speech of Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman,” the company wrote, adding that the disruption was designed to “gain notoriety and cause maximum disruption.”
Aboussad followed up her protest with an email sent to top Microsoft executives, including Satya Nadella and Mustafa Suleyman, explaining her decision. “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. Microsoft interpreted this email as confirmation that she had knowingly violated company policy.
Vaniya Agrawal, the second engineer, had planned to resign from the company on April 11. But Microsoft accelerated her exit, telling her on Monday that it had made her resignation “immediately effective.” Agrawal had also spoken up at a separate company meeting and later wrote an email to Microsoft leadership accusing the company of fueling war, surveillance, and apartheid through its AI work. “By working for this company, we are all complicit,” she wrote.
Both engineers’ protests echoed language and concerns shared by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which earlier that week called for a boycott of Xbox and Microsoft Gaming products. BDS labeled Microsoft “perhaps the most complicit tech company” involved in what it calls “Israel’s illegal occupation” and the “ongoing genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza.” The group urged people to cancel Xbox Game Pass subscriptions and avoid all Microsoft-published games and hardware.
Since October, Israel has reportedly become Microsoft’s second-largest military customer, following only the United States. According to an Associated Press investigation, Israeli forces now use Microsoft AI to process intelligence, monitor communications, and track targets. The report noted that use of the technology increased more than 200 times after the October 7 attack, raising ethical concerns over AI-driven warfare and the danger of fatal errors from false positives.
The firings also highlight growing tension within the company. In October 2024, two other employees—Abdo Mohamed and Hossam Nasr—were dismissed after organizing a vigil for Palestinians killed in Gaza. Internally, the movement is gaining support through campaigns like No Azure for Apartheid, which calls on Microsoft to cut ties with the Israeli military. The campaign has collected over 1,000 employee signatures and features the message “We refuse to be complicit.”
Microsoft, in response, defended its internal policies. A spokesperson said, “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.”