Microsoft President Brad Smith to staff: Anybody smart enough to get a job here is smart enough to know you don't get to...

Microsoft President Brad Smith delivered a blunt message to employees during an internal meeting last week: workers who occupied his office during Gaza-related protests deserved to lose their jobs. "Let me say this, anybody who is smart enough to get a job at Microsoft is smart enough to know that you don't get to storm in and break into buildings and occupy other people's offices and keep your job at Microsoft," Smith said, according to Business Insider.The Redmond giant fired four employees in August after protesters broke into and occupied Smith's office, participating in a sit-in that called for Microsoft to cut ties with the Israeli military amid the Gaza conflict. The fired employees included Riki Fameli, a Microsoft software engineer who worked on Azure Storage.Smith emphasised that the protesters "didn't just protest" but trespassed on private property and barricaded themselves with Microsoft furniture. He defended the company's decision during the meeting, saying the behavior crossed clear boundaries beyond legitimate workplace dissent.During the same meeting, Smith announced that Microsoft hired law firm Covington & Burling to investigate allegations that its technology was used for mass surveillance of Palestinians. The review stems from an August Guardian report claiming an Israeli Defense Forces unit relied on Microsoft's Azure cloud for expansive Palestinian surveillance."That story provided new information to those of us at Microsoft, information that we did not have before," Smith told employees. He insisted the company prohibits customers from using its services for mass surveillance of civilians and is developing new processes for employees to report suspected technology misuse.Microsoft isn’t the only company to take strict action against those protesting the big tech’s ties to Israel. Google fired 28 employees in May 2024 following demonstrations against Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud computing contract with Israel's government. Amazon suspended Palestinian engineer Ahmed Shahrour after he criticized the company's Israeli business ties through internal communications.Fameli, the fired Microsoft engineer, criticized Smith's narrow definition of acceptable protest, telling Business Insider that "proper channels are dead ends" for employee concerns about company policies.