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Protesters stormed Microsoft\u2019s Redmond headquarters on Monday and made it into president Brad Smith\u2019s office in Building 34, forcing a temporary lockdown. The \u201cNo Azure for Apartheid\u201d group reportedly live-streamed their sit-in on Twitch, hoisting banners, chanting \u2018Brad Smith, you can\u2019t hide, you\u2019re supporting genocide!\u2019 and posting a mock legal summons charging Smith with \u201ccrimes against humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n
TechCrunch has reached out to Microsoft for more information.<\/p>\n
According to The Verge<\/a>, the protest included both active Microsoft workers and former employees who\u2019ve been fired for previous activism. Monday\u2019s escalation follows months of protests over Microsoft\u2019s cloud contracts with Israel, including recent arrests at company headquarters. <\/p>\n A recent Guardian investigation <\/a>revealed Israel uses Microsoft\u2019s services to store data from millions of calls each day made by Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.<\/p>\n Today\u2019s corporate takeover mirrors tactics from Google employees more than a year ago. In April 2024, nine Google workers staged coordinated protests across New York and California offices, with five occupying Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian\u2019s office for nine hours. They wrote demands on his whiteboard and wore \u201cGoogler against genocide\u201d shirts.<\/p>\n The Google protesters targeted Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract with Amazon that provides Israel\u2019s government and military with cloud computing and AI tools. The employees\u2019 sit-ins and arrests were similarly live-streamed on Twitch; three days later, 28 employees involved in those protests were fired<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n