Amid a prolonged streak of big tech layoffs and other sackings focussed on curbing protests, Microsoft has fired Joe Lopez, according to the Associated Press. The software engineer made headlines earlier this week for disrupting Indian-origin CEO Satya Nadella’s keynote at the tech giant’s Build developer conference in Seattle.
No Azure for Apartheid, a group of “Microsoft workers demanding that Microsoft end all Azure contracts and partnerships with the Israeli military and govt,” previously shared clips of pro-Palestinian tech staffers interrupting several leading executives’ speeches at Microsoft Build. A video with Lopez in focus emerged three days ago after he was heard shouting at the tech giant’s CEO shortly after the conference kicked off on Monday.
“Satya, how about you show how Microsoft is killing Palestinians? How about you show the Israeli war crimes are powered by Azure. As a Microsoft worker, I refuse to be complicit in this genocide,” Joe Lopez’s outburst mid-way through Nadella’s keynote didn’t prompt the tech titan to pause. While he continued his speech, security guards forcefully escorted the Microsoft employee out of the room.
Who is Joe Lopez?
After the incident, Lopez, who is also a member of No Azure of Apartheid, sent a company-wide email, detailing his side of the story. According to his email, also sent to Nadella himself, the pro-Palestinian protestor served as a firmware engineer under Azure Hardware Systems and Infrastructure (AHSI) for four years. Sharing that while his experience as a Microsoft employee had been “positive,” he added, “I can no longer stand by in silence as Microsoft continues to facilitate Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.”
He wrote further, “Like many of you, I have been watching the ongoing genocide in Gaza in horror. I have been shocked by the silence, inaction, and callousness of world leaders as Palestinian people are suffering, losing their lives and their homes while they plead for the rest of the world to pay attention and act.”
He revealed how by staying informed, sharing information with friends, signing petitions and making donations, he had played his part in some “small” way or the other in protesting the continued Israeli connection. Claimed to have been shocked by the silence from the side of the company’s leadership, he said that he took note of the No Azure for Apartheid movement around the time Indian-American Vaniya Agrawal and Hossam Nasr made headlines for interrupting Microsoft’s 50th anniversary celebrations and protesting against the company’s tied with Israel. Both now-ex-Microsoft techies were fired shortly after the event.
Urging other perturbed by Microsoft’s Israeli ties, Lopez said, “I recognise my privilege as a young person with little financial responsibility to anyone but myself and little risk of deportation as a US citizen.” Acknowledging that not everyone may be in the same position as him, he contended, “But no act is too small when human lives are at stake. Sign the petition, join the movement, start the conversation with colleagues, please contribute whatever you can to the cause.”
Attaching multiple petitions, he concluded his lengthy letter: “Looking back, I’m ashamed of my past silence. But as the saying goes: ‘The best time to act was yesterday, the second time is today.'”
Pro-Palestinian protests at Microsoft Build documented over the week
After Lopez’s bold move, an unnamed “Palestinian tech worker” interrupted Microsoft CoreAI’s Executive VP Jay Parikh’s keynote on Day 2. Morever, former employees Vaniya Agrawal and Hossam Nasr also made a comeback this week to disrupt a session addressed by Sarah Bird, Chief Product Officer of Responsible AI. Yet another video showed pro-Palestinian protestors throwing red glitter, symbolising “the blood of Palestinians murdered by Israel,” at the Seattle Conference Centre exit after the concluding keynote of Microsoft Build.
How Microsoft reacted to pro-Palestinian protests and ‘complicity’ accusations
In light of a series of pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the Seattle conference, the advocacy group said that Microsoft has now blocked internal emails mentioning words like “Palestine,” “genocide,” and “Gaza.”
Microsoft responded previously also to all the noise surrounding these protests by confirming its ties with the Israel Ministry of Defence (IMOD), calling it a “standard commercial relationship.” In a statement, the company said both internal and external reviews “found no evidence that Microsoft’s Azure and AI technologies, or any of our other software, have been used to harm people or that IMOD has failed to comply with out terms of service or our AI Code of Conduct.”