On Monday, Microsoft reportedly ended the roles of Ibtihal Aboussad and Vaniya Agrawal, two software engineers who protested last week’s Microsoft co-pilot and reported deals with Israeli forces during the 50th anniversary event.
According to an internal message viewed by CNBC, Microsoft wrote that Aboussad may have “secretly raised concerns about managers or global employee relationships. Instead, they chose to deliberately confuse Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman’s speech.
Last Friday, during the event, Absad cried out that Suleiman had “blood in his hand” and suspended him while he gave a keynote address on a new AI product. Later that day, Agrawal intervened on a panel featuring Microsoft CEO and former CEO Steve Ballmer and founder Bill Gates, shouting, “I’ve put everyone in shame… I’ve cut ties with Israel.”
Shortly after the incident, Abussad emailed executives who alleged that Microsoft staff and the company had silenced certain opposing employees, according to CNBC. The email reportedly contained a link to a petition from Azure for Apartheid, a group of Microsoft staff members who previously made headlines for protests against their work with Israel.