Microsoft fires employee who disrupted 50th anniversary event by ‘yelling and finger-pointing at the CEO’

Microsoft has fired one of two employees who interrupted the company’s 50th anniversary celebrations with pro-Palestine protests. According to Verge, Ibtihal Aboussad had her employment terminated shortly after she confronted Microsoft’s AI CEO, Mustafa Suleyman, while he was speaking onstage.

Aboussad was one of two Microsoft employees who interrupted the 50th anniversary event to register their protest against the company’s ties with Israel. The other was Indian-American engineer Vaniya Agrawal, who started speaking while Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was on the stage with Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer.

In a mass email sent to colleagues after she was escorted out of the venue, Agrawal said she had decided to leave the company and her last day would be April 11.

Ibtihal Aboussad fired

Microsoft fired Ibtihal Aboussad after her vocal and dramatic protest against Mustafa Suleyman, whom she called a “war profiteer.”

The company cited her protest as the reason for her termination.

“Earlier today, you interrupted a speech by Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman during the Company’s 50th anniversary event in Redmond, Seattle, by yelling and finger-pointing at the CEO before a live audience of thousands of attendees, and making hostile, unprovoked, and highly inappropriate accusations against the CEO, the Company and Microsoft generally,” Microsoft said in an email to Aboussad, a copy of which was reviewed by Verge.

“While the CEO remained calm and attempted to de-escalate the matter, your conduct was so aggressive that you had to be escorted out of the room by security.

“The company has concluded that your misconduct was designed to gain notoriety and cause maximum disruption to this highly anticipated event,” the email from Microsoft said.

“It is also concerning that you have not apologized to the company, and in fact you have shown no remorse for the effect that your actions have had and will have.”