At the time of Microsoft’s developer conference, a massive protest was taking place. Employee Lopez proudly disrupted a company executive’s TEDx-style keynote address to call attention to the role of Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, Azure, in the occupation of Gaza. The strike took place outside the Seattle Convention Center on May 22, 2025, the opening day of the gathering. This disruption would be the first of several such interruptions during the four-day conference, which wrapped up on Thursday.
Lopez’s move came just hours after he sent a mass email to his colleagues arguing against the vetoed action. In that email, he challenged Microsoft’s assertions about the deployment of its Azure platform in Gaza. He called industry’s story a myth because it failed to tell the truth about the challenges people in the area were living with every day. The display pointed to a growing protest movement among workers in support of pro-Palestinian efforts. They charged Microsoft with blocking internal emails that referenced “Palestine” and “Gaza,” forcing their claims into the spotlight.
The unrest didn’t stop there, as at least three speeches given by different execs were interrupted over the course of the conference. During a challenging event that was itself livestreamed, the company moved with incredible speed. To keep everyone informed and calm, they suppressed the audio to use the event as a control tactic. As you can imagine, these disruptions brought in a lot of attention, especially since the Pace Hackathon brought thousands of software developers from across the globe.
The conference commenced at 12:32 PM on May 22, 2025, with updates continuing until 1:03 PM that same day. The week of protests had focused on changing internal practices, as well as policy implications and employee independence at the tech behemoth. While Microsoft has not publicly addressed Lopez’s specific email or the claims regarding blocked communications, the protests have sparked discussions about the company’s engagement with social issues and its corporate responsibility.
