Microsoft employees have claimed that the tech giant is blocking internal and external emails containing terms such as “Gaza”, “Palestine”, and “genocide”, following growing internal unrest over the company’s alleged involvement with Israel. The claims were made public on Thursday by the protest group No Azure for Apartheid, which is composed of Microsoft workers opposing the company’s cloud contracts with Israel’s Defence Ministry, Anadolu Agency reported.
In a statement shared on social media, the group revealed that the firm had dismissed Joe Lopez, a firmware engineer from the Azure hardware team, following his on-stage protest during CEO Satya Nadella’s keynote speech at the Microsoft Build 2025 conference in Seattle. Lopez interrupted the address, accusing Microsoft of aiding in the deaths of Palestinians through its technological support to Israel.
“Satya! How about you show how Microsoft is killing Palestinians?” he shouted, before being removed from the venue. He later sent a mass email to thousands of Microsoft staff, accusing the company of complicity in what he described as “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians.
Microsoft later confirmed to The Verge that it had made changes to its email system to curb “politically focused emails” within the workplace, although it did not directly address the reported censorship of specific words.
Lopez’s protest was reportedly joined by a former Google employee, who had previously spoken out against Google’s own contracts with Israel. Their actions are part of a broader employee-led movement against the use of AI and cloud services for military purposes, particularly those allegedly enabling surveillance and communications monitoring in Gaza.
While Microsoft has acknowledged providing services to Israel’s Defence Ministry, it maintains that thorough internal and third-party reviews have found “no evidence to date” that its Azure or AI tools were used to target or harm civilians in the ongoing conflict.
Tensions have escalated following Israel’s continued blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza since 2 March, which has severely impacted the region’s 2.4 million residents.