HAMILTON (Dispatches) – Dozens looked on at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington, as software engineer Vaniya Agrawal disrupted the company’s high-profile 50th anniversary celebration by confronting its top leadership.
Agrawal interrupted a keynote panel featuring CEO Satya Nadella and former CEOs Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, accusing the tech giant of complicity in Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza. She was swiftly escorted out after publicly calling the executives “hypocrites” and demanding Microsoft “cut ties with Israel.”
“Shame on all of you for celebrating in their blood,” she yelled, referring to the company’s alleged provision of advanced cloud and artificial intelligence technologies to the Israeli military.
Since the Zionist regime’s aggression on Gaza began in October 2023, multiple reports have pointed to U.S. tech companies — including Microsoft — as enablers of the Israeli army’s expanding digital infrastructure during a bombardment campaign that has devastated much of the enclave and killed more than 50,000 Palestinians.
But according to Agrawal, who was fired shortly after the protest, Microsoft’s involvement goes much further back.
“Even before Oct. 7, Microsoft has played a role in the continuation of apartheid and genocide in Gaza,” Agrawal said. The company, she asserted, is “powering genocide.”
“Over the past year and a half, we’ve started to learn more and more about how exactly those ties manifest and how Microsoft and its services have enabled and accelerated the genocide in Gaza.”
She said that internal attempts to raise alarms about the company’s collaboration with Israel were systematically suppressed. “They’ve declined to comment on the investigations. They evade questions internally. They deleted comments from workers asking for explanations.”
Despite what she described as an attempt to silence dissent, Agrawal said employees across Microsoft’s global offices took quiet action in solidarity. Some joined a strike responding to a Gaza call to action, while others changed their status messages or set out-of-office replies in a show of dissent.
Agrawal emphasized the importance of collective action.
“We have power in our numbers, and resistance isn’t a solitary endeavor. It only survives in the arms of the collective,” she said.
She noted that following the protests, Microsoft executives began turning off comments on celebratory social media posts — evidence, she claimed, that the company was feeling the pressure.
“It’s very clear their image has been tarnished, and the world sees now that they’re hypocrites,” she repeated. “They can’t hide behind their philanthropy or their prestige any longer.”
Agrawal said her decision to disrupt the anniversary event was born out of frustration after repeated internal efforts to push Microsoft to address its business with the Israeli government went nowhere.
She and other campaigners from the group “No Azure for Apartheid” had tried other channels — emails, meetings, and appeals to leadership — but said they were ignored, dismissed, and targeted.