Microsoft employees protest sales of AI, cloud services to 'Israel'
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The protest followed an investigative report by the Associated Press that revealed the increasing reliance of the Israeli Occupation Forces on its services.
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An Israeli flag is draped over the Microsoft offices in a building in Bir al Saba'a, Occupied Palestine, on Thursday, May 30, 2024 (AP)
Five Microsoft employees were evicted from a meeting with the Chief Executive for protesting contracts that sell Artificial Intelligence and Cloud services to the Israeli Occupation Forces after an investigation by The Associated Press revealed the IOF used AI models from Microsoft to select bombing targets in Lebanon and Palestine.
During an employee town hall meeting at Microsoft's corporate campus in Redmond, Washington, CEO Satya Nadella was discussing new products when a group of employees standing about 15 feet to his right revealed T-shirts that, when aligned, spelled out the question: "Does Our Code Kill Kids, Satya?"
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— ⚡️🌎 World News 🌐⚡️ (@ferozwala) February 26, 2025
Five #Microsoft employees were fired from a meeting with CEO #Satya_Nadella after protesting contracts to provide artificial intelligence & cloud computing services to the Israeli occupation army, which used them in the #genocide of the Palestinians, as…
Photos and videos of the incident show Nadella ignoring the protesters and speaking normally, while two men tapped them on the shoulder and led them out of the meeting.
Microsoft told AP that they "provide many avenues for all voices to be heard,” emphasizing that protests be done in a way that does not disrupt business, and when that takes place, they "ask participants to relocate."
The tech giant did not clarify whether it will take disciplinary action or not, however, in October, Microsoft fired two workers for organizing a lunchtime vigil for Palestinian refugees at its headquarters "in accordance with internal policy."
Leaks expose Microsoft, IOF cooperation
Leaked documents unveiled the increasing cooperation between Microsoft and Israeli military operations during its war on Gaza in 2023, specifically in the venues of Artificial Intelligence and Cloud computing.
The joint investigation by The Guardian, +972 Magazine, and Local Call used documents sourced from Drop Site News in addition to interviews with Israeli security and intelligence executives and officers, revealing that Microsoft's Azure cloud service became a central part of the IOF's air, ground, naval and intelligence operations.
The Israeli military became in dire need of computing resources, leading to a shift towards the "wonderful world of cloud providers," according to an Israeli commander, and the IOF expanded its use of cloud services from Microsoft, Amazon, and Google.
The documents unveiled that Azure was not only used for administrative tasks but also military and intelligence operations: The IOF Military Intelligence Directorate used Azure to manage sensitive operations, while Units 8200 and 9900 used the Cloud service for a variety of purposes.
By March 2024, the IOF's monthly consumption of Azure's Machine Learning tools grew 64 times compared to September 2023.
The Israeli military also saw a surge in the use of OpenAI's GPT-4 model, integrated via Azure, enabling them to process vast amounts of data to use in the war on Gaza
