Microsoft terminates jobs of engineers who protested use of AI products by Israel’s military

Microsoft terminated the employment of two software engineers who protested at company events on Friday over the Israeli military’s use of the company’s artificial intelligence products, according to documents viewed by CNBC.Ibtihal Aboussad, a software engineer in the company’s AI division who is based in Canada, was fired on Monday over “just cause, wilful misconduct, disobedience or wilful neglect of duty,” according to one of the documents.Another Microsoft software engineer, Vaniya Agrawal, had said she would resign from the company on Friday, April 11. But Microsoft terminated her role on Monday, according to an internal message viewed by CNBC. The company wrote that it “has decided to make your resignation immediately effective today.”Both employees chose Microsoft’s 50th anniversary event to publicly voice their criticism. What Microsoft had hoped would be a celebratory period has turned into a brutal few days for the company, which is being hit, along with the rest of the market, by President Donald Trump’s widespread tariffs. It’s a topic that CEO Satya Nadella and his two predecessors, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, were forced to uncomfortably confront on Friday in an interview with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin.“As a Microsoft shareholder, this kind of thing is not good,” Ballmer said, about the tariffs.Meanwhile, the celebration itself captured headlines more for the protesters’ shared message than for Microsoft’s half-century of accomplishments.Microsoft didn’t immediately provide a comment.

The first interruption on Friday came from Aboussad

The first interruption on Friday came from Aboussad, who stood up during Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman’s speech.“Mustafa, shame on you,” Aboussad said as she walked towards the stage at the event in Redmond, Washington. “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.”Aboussad also called Suleyman a “war profiteer.”“You have blood on your hands,” she said before being swiftly escorted out. “All of Microsoft has blood on its hands.”Shortly after the interruption, Aboussad sent an email, which was viewed by CNBC, to Suleyman and other Microsoft executives, including CEO Satya Nadella, finance chief Amy Hood, operating chief Carolina Dybeck Happe and Brad Smith, the company’s president.