'We Are Complicit': Vaniya Agrawal Publicly Confronts Microsoft CEOs Over Gaza War

Vaniya Agrawal, a former employee at Microsoft, disrupted the company's 50th-anniversary celebration in Washington to call out the company's alleged involvement in Israel's military operations in Gaza. The Indian-American engineer publically confronted former CEOs Bill Gates & Steve Ballmer and current CEO Satya Nadella, saying, "Shame on you all. You’re all hypocrites!" She condemned Microsoft’s alleged contact of $133 million cloud and AI with Israel’s Ministry of Defense, accusing the company of "enabling the genocide" of Palestinians.

Pro-Palestine Protests Disrupt Microsoft Event

Although she was booed by the audience at the event, Agrawal continued, "Fifty thousand Palestinians in Gaza have been murdered with Microsoft technology. How dare you. Shame on all of you for celebrating on their blood. Cut ties with Israel," Agrawal was heard shouting in a viral video on social media. She continued her protest even when she was escorted out of the venue.

According to media reports, Vaniya Agrawal worked as a software engineer in Microsoft's AI department. Following her protest at Microsoft's 50th-anniversary event, she reportedly sent a mass email saying she was resigning from the tech giant and that her last day would be April 11. She wrote that she did not want to be a part of a company that "participates in violent injustice.

After her video was widely circulated online, she shared the resignation letter on her X account. "Here's why I decided to leave the company, and why I spoke today," she wrote in the subject line. Agrawal called Microsoft "a digital weapons manufacturer that powers surveillance, apartheid, and genocide" and urged fellow employees to sign the "No Azure for Apartheid" petition. 

Here’s why I disrupted Bill Gates, Satya Nadella, and Steve Ballmer: https://t.co/WlPlJ4moXi https://t.co/uIcf3DbdaX

— Vaniya Agrawal (@vaniya_agrawal) April 7, 2025

Agrawal cited recent reports by the Associated Press, which "exposed Microsoft's critical role in enabling Israel's apartheid regime and the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza". Calling Microsoft a “digital weapons manufacturer,” she accused the company of violating its own human rights commitments. "Our labour empowers this genocide", she wrote in the impassioned email.

'We are complicit:' writes Vaniya Agrawal in her email

"Like most, I joined Microsoft believing in its mission to “empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.” I believed in its “commitment to respecting and promoting human rights.” I believed that Microsoft was dedicated to philanthropy and promoting fundamental rights around the world. But, over the past 1.5 years, I’ve grown more aware of Microsoft’s growing role in the military industrial complex. 

All this begs the question, which “people” are we empowering with our technology? The oppressors enforcing an apartheid regime? The war criminals committing a genocide? Unfortunately, at this point, it’s irrefutable that Microsoft is complicit — they are a digital weapons manufacturer that powers surveillance, apartheid, and genocide. And by working for this company, we are all complicit."

Protestors Terminated From Microsoft

Vaniya Agrawal was not the only one who stood up against Microsoft bosses at the 50th-anniversary celebrations. Earlier, another Canada-based employee, Ibtihal Aboussad, confronted the company's AI CEO, Mustafa Suleyman, accusing him of being a "war profiteer" and alleging that Microsoft's AI technologies are used in acts of genocide.

According to documents accessed by CNBC, both employees were fired three days after their protests. On April 8, the company allegedly responded to Agrawal's email, saying it had "decided to make your resignation immediately effective today.” The documents claimed that they were terminated over “just cause, wilful misconduct, disobedience or wilful neglect of duty."

Who Is Vaniya Agrawal?

Agrawal joined Microsoft in September 2023. As per her LinkedIn profile, she did her Bachelor of Science in software engineering from Arizona State University in 2016-19 and graduated with a summa cum laude. She also received the Grace Hopper Scholarship from ASU, which was received by only 35 students of the institution to attend the 2017 Grace Hopper Conference.