Microsoft was the first company to participate in the PRISM surveillance program, according to leaked NSA documents obtained by The Guardian and The Washington Post in June 2013, and acknowledged by government officials following the leak. In December 2013, the company made a statement to further emphasize that it takes its customers’ privacy and data protection very seriously, saying that “government snooping potentially now constitutes an ‘advanced persistent threat,’ alongside sophisticated malware and cyber attacks”. Microsoft provides information about reported bugs in its software to intelligence agencies of the United States government, prior to the public release of the fix. Amid the layoffs, Microsoft also closed its office in Pakistan and laid off its employees there as part of its move toward a software-as-a-service and AI operating model.<\/p>\n
Subsequently, two employees, software engineers Ibtihal Aboussad and Vaniya Agrawal, interrupted AI executive Mustafa Suleyman at a speaking event on April 4, 2025, in protest at the company’s support of Israel. The employees, part of the group No Azure for Apartheid, sought to address the company’s involvement in the Israeli government’s use of its technology. In October 2024, Microsoft fired two employees, software engineer Hossam Nasr and data scientist Abdo Mohamed, who organized an unauthorized vigil at its Redmond headquarters to honor Palestinians killed in the Gaza war. According to the complaint and media reports, Microsoft\u2019s cloud services may have been used to store or process surveillance-related data. The probe scrutinized Microsoft’s bundling of cloud services with products like Office and security tools, as well as its growing AI presence through its partnership with OpenAI. The program authorizes the government to secretly access data of non-US citizens hosted by American companies without a warrant.<\/p>\n
A Big Tech company, Microsoft is the largest software company by revenue, one of the most valuable public companies, and one of the most valuable brands globally. In November 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) launched an investigation into Microsoft, focusing on potential antitrust violations related to its cloud computing, AI, and cybersecurity businesses. This is due to the company being tax resident in Bermuda as mentioned in the accounts for ‘Microsoft Round Island One, a subsidiary that collects license fees from the use of Microsoft software worldwide. The company is often referred to as a “Velvet Sweatshop”, a term which originated in a 1989 Seattle Times article, and later became used to describe the company by some of Microsoft’s own employees. Historically, Microsoft has also been accused of overworking employees, in many cases, leading to burnout within just a few years of joining the company.<\/p>\n