Microsoft fires employee protestor who called AI boss a ‘war profiteer’
1 min read
Summary
One of two Microsoft employees who disrupted the company’s 50th-anniversary event in protest over its contracts with the Israeli government has been dismissed.
In an email to staff, the software giant said it had decided to fire Ibtihal Aboussad, who works for Microsoft Canada, for “acts of misconduct”.
Aboussad and Vaniya Agrawal, who was also later dismissed, had called Microsoft’s AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman and the company itself a “war profiteer” and urged it to stop using AI for “genocide in our region”.
The company accused Aboussad of being apparently “designed to gain notoriety and cause maximum disruption to this highly anticipated event” and also criticised her for not apologising.
Aboussad and Agrawal are associated with No Azure for Apartheid, a group of Microsoft employees opposed to the company’s deals with Israel.