Brad Smith, president of Microsoft Corp., on the Web Summit conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on Wednesday, May 28, 2025. The annual conference gathers key industry figures in technology.
James MacDonald | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Microsoft asked police to remove individuals who improperly entered a constructing at its headquarters in protest of the Israeli military’s alleged use of the corporate’s software as a part of the invasion of Gaza.
On Tuesday, current and former Microsoft employees affiliated with the group No Azure for Apartheid began protesting inside a constructing on Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, Washington, and gained entry into the office of Brad Smith, the corporate’s president. The protesters delivered a court summons notice at his office, in accordance with a press release from the group.
“Obviously, when seven folks do as they did today — storm a constructing, occupy an office, block other people out of the office, plant listening devices, even in crude form, in the shape of telephones, cell phones hidden under couches and behind books — that is not OK,” Smith told reporters during a briefing.
“Once they’re asked to depart and so they refuse, that is not OK. That is why for those seven folks, the Redmond police literally needed to take them out of the constructing.”
Smith said that out of the seven individuals who entered his office, two were employees.
While the corporate doesn’t retaliate against employees who express their views, Smith said, it’s different in the event that they make threats. Microsoft will have a look at whether to discipline the staff who participated within the protest, Smith said.
Once inside Microsoft’s constructing 34, the No Azure For Apartheid protesters demanded that the corporate cut its ties with Israel and ask for an end to the country’s alleged genocide.
Tech’s megacap firms are doing more work with defense agencies, particularly as demand increases for advanced artificial intelligence technologies. A lot of those activities were already controversial, but the difficulty has gotten more intense as Israel has escalated its military offensive in Gaza.
Last 12 months Google fired 28 employees after some trespassed at the corporate’s facilities. Some employees gained access to the office of Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google’s cloud unit, which had a contract with Israel’s government.
No Azure for Apartheid has held a series of actions this 12 months, including at Microsoft’s Construct developer conference and at a celebration of the corporate’s fiftieth anniversary. A Microsoft director reached out to the Federal Bureau of Investigation because the protests continued, Bloomberg reported earlier on Tuesday.
Last week, No Azure For Apartheid mounted protests around the corporate’s campus, resulting in 20 arrests in at some point. Of the 20, 16 have never worked at Microsoft, Smith said.
The Guardian reported earlier this month that Israel’s military used Microsoft’s Azure cloud infrastructure to store Palestinians’ phone calls, leading the corporate to authorize a third-party investigation into whether Israel has drawn on the corporate’s technology for surveillance.
“I feel the responsible step from us is evident in this sort of situation: to go investigate and get to the reality of how our services are getting used,” Smith said on Tuesday.
Most of Microsoft’s work with the Israeli Defense Force involves cybersecurity for Israel, he said. He added that the corporate cares “deeply” in regards to the people in Israel who died from the terrorist attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, and the hostages who were taken, in addition to the tens of hundreds of civilians in Gaza who’ve died since from the war.
Microsoft intends to offer technology in an ethical way, Smith said.
WATCH: Microsoft President Brad Smith: AI is influencing the forms of employees who’re hired
