Microsoft fires employee who interrupted Nadella’s keynote over Gaza protest

Microsoft Build 2025 took place last week, but with an interruption that the company wouldn’t have wanted. During CEO Satya Nadella’s keynote, a Microsoft software engineer protested during the speech with chants of “Free Palestine!” According to a report from the New York Post, Microsoft has fired the protesting engineer, Joe Lopez.

Microsoft fires an employee who protested during the Build 2025 event keynote

The employee who protested and was later fired accused Microsoft of helping power Israeli military operations in Gaza. Lopez questioned Nadella, “Satya, how about you show how Microsoft is killing Palestinians. How about you show how Israeli war crimes are powered by Azure?”

Nadella barely reacted to the disruption and continued speaking as security removed Lopez from the hall. However, the protest didn’t stop there. Later, Lopez sent an email to thousands of employees, criticizing what he called the company’s “silence” and disputing Microsoft’s claims that its Azure cloud platform wasn’t being used to harm civilians in Gaza.

“Leadership rejects our claims that Azure technology is being used to target or harm civilians in Gaza,” Lopez wrote in the email. If you have followed up on Microsoft’s situation with pro-Palestine protestors, you must be aware that Lopez isn’t the only employee who has criticized the company.

Previously, Vaniya Agrawal and Hossam Nasr—both former Microsoft employees—also interrupted a Microsoft event, citing similar concerns. Agrawal was reportedly fired in April after an earlier protest and has since shared images from inside the conference, drawing more attention to the growing dissent within the tech community.

Also read: Protest at Microsoft Build 2025 Exposes Walmart’s AI Plans in Accidental Teams Leak

Microsoft has previously responded

Microsoft, on the other hand, says its services are doing no harm to civilians in Gaza. In a recent blog post, Microsoft confirmed that it supplies the Israeli military with software, Azure AI tools, and language translation services.

The company claims these tools are used in hostage rescue missions, not military strikes, and says it reviews all requests closely. More recently, the company also confirmed blocking emails from employees with words like “Palestine,” “Gaza,” and ‘genocide.”