Microsoft has fired two employees in connection with the 50th-anniversary event, one of them was the Indian-American Vaniya Aggrawal who called the company a “Weapon manufacturer”. The other employee fired was Ibtihal Aboussad who disrupted the speech by Mustafa Suleyman, the AI head of the company. Aggrawal caused a similar ruckus by interrupting the Q&A session by former CEOs Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and current CEO Satya Nadela.
The event was organized in Redmond, Washington and after the behaviour of the employees they were told to leave the venue. Later Aggrawal sent her resignation which will come into effect from April 11, 2025, in the letter she states,
I cannot, in good conscience, be part of a company that participates in this violent injustice.
She claimed that Microsoft’s products including Microsoft Azure and its AI tools have been used by the Israeli military for surveillance and attack on Palestine, she further said that working with the company she felt that her actions were responsible for the genocide that is happening in Gaza.
In her publicly shared resignation letter, she has also urged her colleagues to challenge their position to stop Microsoft’s involvement in the Israel-Gaza conflict. She wrote,
If you must continue to work at Microsoft, I urge you to use your position, power, and privilege to hold Microsoft accountable to its values and mission.
In the backdrop that the company is going against its policies and being a part of a violent crime.
Her letter was shared on X where she talks about the incident.
Here’s why I disrupted Bill Gates, Satya Nadella, and Steve Ballmer: https://t.co/WlPlJ4moXi https://t.co/uIcf3DbdaX
— Vaniya Agrawal (@vaniya_agrawal) April 7, 2025Her resignation has been immediately accepted by Microsoft, while the other employee Aboussad has been fired for “misconduct” via an email, as stated in the letter reviewed by Bloomberg
In the protest at the event, Aboussad called Mustafa Suleyam saying that while he claims that the AI tools are being used for the good, it is the opposite, and the company is selling AI weapons to the Israeli Military. Responding to her reaction the company said that it was “hostile, unprovoked and highly inappropriate.” Both Vaniya and Ibtihal worked as software engineers in Microfost and were part of the No Aure or Apartheid group that talks about stopping the use of Azure in connection with the Israel-Gaza war.
