"Microsoft Asked FBI for Help Tracking Palestinian Protests", August 26, 2025

For the better part of a year, Microsoft Corp. has failed to quell a small but persistent revolt by employees bent on forcing the company to sever business ties with Israel over its war in Gaza.

The world’s largest software maker has requested help from the Federal Bureau of Investigation in tracking protests, worked with local authorities to try and prevent them, flagged internal emails containing words like “Gaza” and deleted some internal posts about the protests, according to employees and documents reviewed by Bloomberg. Microsoft has also suspended and fired protesters for disrupting company events.

Last week, 20 people were arrested on a plaza at Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington, headquarters after disregarding orders by police to disperse.

On Tuesday, protesters occupied the office of Microsoft President Brad Smith, sharing video on the Twitch livestreaming platform that showed them chanting, hanging banners and briefly attempting to barricade a door with furniture.

An employee group called No Azure for Apartheid says that by selling software and artificial intelligence tools to Israel’s military, the company’s Azure cloud service is profiting from the deaths of civilians.

Microsoft says it expects customers to adhere to international law governing human rights and armed conflict, and that the company’s terms of service prohibit the use of Microsoft products to violate people’s rights. “If we determine that a customer — any customer — is using our technology in ways that violate our terms of service, we will take steps to address that,”

“One of our former employees in particular, Hossam Nasr, has been quite active in his posts targeting Microsoft and that we are complicit in genocide,” a Microsoft director of investigations wrote the FBI in an email seen by Bloomberg. The company had identified a handful of employees involved in the demonstrations, including one of their young adult children, he added.

A spokesperson for the FBI in Seattle said it respects the right to peaceful protest and focuses on criminal activity and threats to national security. The FBI declined to comment on any interactions with Microsoft or other members of the public.