‘You’re killing Palestinians with...’: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella called out at live event by employee, accuses company of...

During the Microsoft Build event on Monday, CEO Satya Nadella’s keynote speech was interrupted by one of the engineers working in the company itself. The employee, Joe Lopez, screamed strongly accusing Microsoft of helping Israeli war actions in Gaza. Lopez, who has been running as a firmware engineer below Azure Hardware Systems and Infrastructure (AHSI) for four years, loudly asked, “Satya, how approximately you display how Microsoft is killing Palestinians?” and added, “How approximately you show how Israeli conflict crimes are powered via Azure?”

Security speedy escorted Lopez out of the occasion, however the protest didn’t cease there. Shortly in a while, Lopez sent an inner electronic mail to personnel, explaining why he interrupted the occasion. In the e-mail, which has been published on Medium, Lopez stated he may want to now not stay silent approximately Microsoft’s involvement. He claimed that Microsoft become assisting Israel carry out what he defined as “ethnic cleansing” of the Palestinian people.

A pro-Palestine Microsoft worker protested the leadership of the company for supporting genocide in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/Ucd2tcl

— Palestine Info Center (palinfoen) May 2025

Lopez’s protest came just after Microsoft launched a weblog publish stating that it had achieved an inner overview with a 3rd-birthday celebration company and determined “no evidence” that its Azure cloud or AI technologies were used to damage humans within the Gaza warfare. But Lopez called this response susceptible and unconvincing. He wondered the transparency of such an audit, in particular considering that Microsoft and an unnamed outside entity conducted it.

He additionally talked about that Microsoft had admitted to giving the Israeli Ministry of Defense “special get entry to” to its technologies. Lopez requested what form of special get right of entry to turned into given and what it turned into used for. “Do you simply trust that this befell most effective once?” he wrote.

Lopez warned that public boycotts of Microsoft could growth if the corporation didn’t take a more potent stance. “We see the crimes going on stay on the net each day,” he introduced.

This isn't the first time Microsoft employees have spoken up approximately the business enterprise’s position inside the Israel-Gaza warfare. Last month, an Indian-foundation employee named Vaniya Agrawal faced top Microsoft leaders along with Nadella, Steve Ballmer, and Bill Gates in the course of a company event. She claimed that Microsoft’s technologies support Israel’s army moves. Around the same time, any other engineer, Ibtihal Aboussad, interrupted an AI occasion led with the aid of Mustafa Suleyman with comparable accusations.