A demonstrator holds a banner that reads “Free Zone” during a protest at the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington, on August 19, 2025. Microsoft employees rallied at the company’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington, to increase pressure on the software maker to stop doing business with Israel over the Gaza war.
David Ryder Bloomberg | Getty Images
a microsoft The engineer is resigning after 13 years at the software giant, claiming the company continues to sell cloud services to the Israeli military and executives won’t discuss the Gaza war.
Chief software engineer Scott Sutfin-Growsky told colleagues at Microsoft on Thursday that this week would be his last week at the company.
“It is no longer acceptable to allow what may be the worst atrocity of our time,” he wrote.
In his letter, he cited an Associated Press article from February that said the Israeli military had at least 635 Microsoft subscriptions, and claimed that the majority were still active.
Microsoft declined to comment.
Sutfin-Glowski’s resignation announcement came a day after President Donald Trump said Israel and Hamas were committed to working on the first phase of a peace plan two years after the latest conflict. The Associated Press reported Thursday that the United States is sending about 200 troops to Israel to support the ceasefire agreement, citing government officials.
The dispute is a topic of ongoing tension within Microsoft.
Employees have been protesting the company’s cloud business to the Israeli military for months. Five employees were fired.
Microsoft announced in September that it had stopped providing certain services to a division of the Israeli Ministry of Defense, without providing details. The decision came after Microsoft investigated an August report in the Guardian newspaper that said the Israel Defense Forces’ 8,200 unit had built a system to track Palestinian phone calls.
Sutfin-Growsky said the company had cut off a communication system that allowed employees to voice concerns about the Israeli military’s use of Microsoft products.
On Thursday, employees and community members unfurled a banner outside Microsoft’s headquarters building in Redmond, Washington, calling on the company to sever ties with Israel, according to a statement from No Azul for Apartheid. The group is calling on Microsoft to listen to the more than 1,500 employees who petitioned the company to support the ceasefire.
“Today, after two years of genocide, a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip finally comes into effect, but atrocities, human rights violations, war crimes, apartheid and occupation continue,” Sutfin-Growsky wrote.
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