Employees called out company over Israel's use of Microsoft's AI products
Two software engineers at Microsoft have been fired for protesting at company events over the Israeli military's use of the company's artificial intelligence products, according to reports.
The engineers fired are Ibtihal Aboussad, who works for Microsoft's AI division, and Vaniya Agrawal, CNBC reported, citing internal documents that it obtained.
Aboussad was terminated after she interrupted a speech by Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman during a company event for Microsoft's 50th anniversary.
She called Suleyman a "war profiteer" as she slammed Microsoft for selling AI weapons to the Israeli military.
"Fifty thousand people have died, and Microsoft powers this genocide in our region," she said, as quoted by CNBC. "You have blood on your hands. All of Microsoft has blood on its hands."
Aboussad, who got escorted out of the event, later sent an email to Suleyman, CEO Satya Nadella, and other Microsoft executives explaining her actions.
"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 said in the email, which was seen by CNBC.
"I did not sign up to write code that violates human rights."
According to Aboussad's email, Microsoft is also allegedly quelling and suppressing any dissent from its workforce who had tried to raise an issue over the matter.
Microsoft then told Aboussad internally that her email was admission that she "deliberately and willfully engaged" in misconduct.
It concluded that Aboussad's action was designed to "gain notoriety and cause maximum disruption" to Microsoft's highly anticipated event.
The tech giant further told the software engineer that she could have raised the matter confidentially with her manager, or the Global Employee Relations.
"Instead, you chose to intentionally disrupt the speech of Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman," Microsoft told Aboussad as quoted by CNBC. "Immediate cessation of your employment is the only appropriate response."
Meanwhile, Microsoft also terminated the employment of software engineer Vaniya Agrawal, who interrupted Nadella's speech at another event for the company's 50th anniversary.
Agrawal, just like Aboussad, also sent an email to executives after her protest.
"You may have seen me stand up earlier today to call out Satya during his speech at the Microsoft 50th anniversary," she wrote in the email, as quoted by CNBC.
"Over the past 1.5 years, I've grown more aware of Microsoft’s growing role in the military-industrial complex."
Agrawal accused Microsoft of being complicit as a "digital weapons manufacturer that powers surveillance, apartheid, and genocide." She also stated that everyone else is complicit for working for Microsoft.
"Even if we don't work directly in AI or Azure, our labour is tacit support, and our corporate climb only fuels the system," she said.
Agrawal's email included an intent to resign on April 11, but Microsoft responded that they're choosing to make her resignation "immediately effective."
Microsoft, in a statement to CNBC, said they 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," a company spokesperson told the news outlet.
The situation at Microsoft demonstrates the spillover of discussions on political issues and social activism in workplaces, prompting different reactions from HR.
A survey from Intelligent.com last year found that one in five businesses have reservations about hiring recent graduates who participated in pro-Palestine protests amid concerns that they could get too confrontational (63%) or political (59%) at work.
However, 21% also said they prefer hiring these protestors, as they noted that these employees' willingness to speak up (73%) and strong values (72%).
