"Microsoft workers protest sale of AI and cloud services to Israeli military", 25 February 2025

Five Microsoft employees were ejected from a meeting with the company's chief executive for protesting contracts to provide artificial intelligence and cloud computing services to the Israeli military.

The protest...came after an investigation by The Associated Press...that sophisticated AI models from Microsoft and OpenAI had been used as part of an Israeli military program to select bombing targets during the recent wars in Gaza and Lebanon...

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was speaking about new products at an employee town hall meeting at the company's corporate campus in Redmond, Washington. Workers standing about 15 feet to his right then revealed T-shirts that when they stood side-by-side spelled out the question “Does Our Code Kill Kids, Satya?"

Photos and video of the incident, which was live streamed throughout the company, shows Nadella kept speaking and did not acknowledge the protesters. Two men quickly tapped the workers on the shoulders and ushered them out of the room.

Microsoft did not respond to an email from the AP on Tuesday seeking comment about the protest or whether the employees involved would face disciplinary action. The company also previously declined to comment about the AP's Feb. 18 story about its contracts with the Israeli military...

A group of workers has been raising concerns within the company for months about Microsoft providing services to the Israeli military through its Azure cloud computing platform. Some employees at the company have also spoken out in support of Israel and said those supporting Palestinians have made them feel unsafe.

The AP's investigation included exclusive details drawn from internal company data and documents, including that the usage of AI models by the Israeli military through Azure increased nearly 200 times after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas militants...

“The demands are clear," said Mohamed, who works with a group of Microsoft workers called No Azure for Apartheid. "Satya Nadella and Microsoft executives need to answer to their workers by dropping contracts with the Israeli military.”