Microsoft is turning 50 years old and celebrated its anniversary with an event in Redmond, Washington. However, an employee of the company, Ibtihal Aboussand, crashed the celebration with a political protest and was removed from the event. She accused Microsoft of having blood on its hands.
This was the situation: The head of Microsoft AI, Mustafa Suleyman, was just giving a presentation about the long-term vision of “Copilot,” Microsoft’s artificial intelligence.
Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer were also in the audience at the event at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington.
An employee approached Suleyman and shouted, “Mustafa, shame on you.” She was escorted out of the building.
Employee protests and is removed from the event
This was the employee’s protest: The employee shouted at the CEO of the AI department:
You claim that you use AI for good, but Microsoft sells AI weapons to the Israeli army. 50,000 people have died, and Microsoft is enabling genocide in our country.
Suleyman said from the stage, “Thank you for the protest, I hear you.”
As the employee was pushed out of the room, she shouted that Suleyman and everyone at Microsoft had blood on their hands. She threw a scarf onto the stage, which serves as a supportive symbol for the people in Gaza.
As she was being escorted out, she shouted: How dare you celebrate here when Microsoft is killing children?
Suleyman stood visibly moved on stage, looking down and repeatedly said that they could hear her.
Here you can see how the situation unfolds:
Employee saw no other way to articulate her protest
Who is the woman? She is an employee of Microsoft, Ibithal Aboussad. As The Verge learned from sources, the employee reached out to “hundreds or thousands” of employees at Microsoft in an email after the event.
She has been working at Microsoft for three and a half years as a Software Engineer in AI and decided to protest when she learned that her company was supporting the genocide of her people.
The employee writes that Microsoft has suppressed dissent from her colleagues, and there was no other way for her to make her voice heard than through public protest.
She writes that initially she was glad to be working on AI at Microsoft. However, she was not informed that Microsoft would sell her work to the Israeli military, intending to spy on and kill journalists, doctors, aid workers, and entire families. If she had known that her work would be used to better target Palestinians, she would not have joined the company. She did not sign up to code that violates human rights.
This is what Microsoft says: In a statement to PC Gamer, Microsoft stated:
We provide many avenues for all voices to be heard. It’s important that this happens in a way that does not disrupt business operations. If this occurs, we ask participants to relocate. We are committed to conducting our business practices to the highest standards.
