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News & Current Events May 12, 2026 at 1:21 AM

Microsoft fires head of Israeli subsidiary and other managers over surveillance of Palestinians

Posted by Luka77GOATic

Microsoft fires head of Israeli subsidiary and other managers over surveillance of Palestinians
PC Gamer
Microsoft fires head of Israeli subsidiary and other managers over surveillance of Palestinians
The move follows years of internal and external pressure.
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Luka77GOATic May 12, 2026 +640
“According to Globes, a Microsoft investigative team began work last month over concerns that the Israeli subsidiary was exposing the company to legal liability in Europe. The Azure servers used by the Israeli government to store surveillance data were based in Europe, potentially putting Microsoft at risk from scrutiny by EU regulators. After investigating Haimovich and his team, Microsoft ousted the GM and other, unnamed senior staff at the subsidiary. While the company searches for a new GM, Microsoft Israel has been placed under the management of Microsoft France.”
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camshun7 May 12, 2026 +228
Mi6 sets MS on the correct path.
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WTFThisIsReallyWierd May 12, 2026 +43
I'm still not going to use windows.
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Not-the-best-name May 12, 2026 +103
So.... Not punished for doing the wrong thing, but punished for doing it in the wrong place where it might cost the company money?
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mysightisurs93 May 12, 2026 +30
That's where the capital is!
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brooklynlad May 12, 2026 +22
I wish Microsoft Israel would be placed under the management of Microsoft Spain.
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Lechowski May 12, 2026 +6
Why would they use EU servers? Aren't there data centers specifically for Israeli government? It is quite common for Azure to provide gov clouds
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Forsaken_Ad_774 May 12, 2026 +12
Israel does not have a Microsoft public sovereign cloud. I’m not sure if they have a private either, but sovereign cloud is mostly using your own datacenters and other infrastructure but with the Microsoft azure tooling.
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Elavia_ May 12, 2026 +1
The risk of a data center in Israel getting bombed probably makes it not worth it.
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NewsCards May 12, 2026 +996
> According to Globes, a Microsoft investigative team began work last month over concerns that the Israeli subsidiary was exposing the company to legal liability in Europe. The Azure servers used by the Israeli government to store surveillance data were based in Europe, potentially putting Microsoft at risk from scrutiny by EU regulators. This should be obvious to most people, but Microsoft is only doing this because the surveillance put them under scrutiny of EU regulators. Very obviously not taking a moral stand or anything, no reasonable person should expect a corporation to do that.
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Bupod May 12, 2026 +131
I am also wondering if they’re not also doing this because with Orban kicked to the curb, and his replacement not being an EU-Skeptic with a lust for vetoing, it’s likely they’ll now take a harder stance against Israel. I just read that the EU is sanctioning Israeli Settlers now that they can get the unanimous votes to do so with Orban gone.
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Efficient_Carrot_669 May 12, 2026 +37
Yeah at first I thought “ultra rare Microsoft W” but then I gave it another five seconds of thought
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KingofSheepX May 12, 2026 +74
It's a regulation W, that's what they're supposed to do
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CursorX May 12, 2026 +8
Still, it's better for them to take action even for that reason than to run to Trump for help with overriding EU law, like Musk is doing for Twitter/SpaceX/Tesla.
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jestate May 12, 2026 +3
It's not "very obvious" at all. By your logic, the only reason people don't kill their own children is because there's a law against it. It's "very obvious". I have no desire to defend Microsoft, but you have no evidence to support the idea that if the regulation had not been there, that they wouldn't have fired these people. I am obviously glad the regulation was there, but you have no clue what they would have if it hadn't been. What's bizarre is you might actually be right, that they wouldn't have fired them, but there's no evidence to support it, and making ridiculous statements about how obvious it is completely undermines the suggestion.
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Shawnj2 May 12, 2026 +1
It is very difficult for a big company to make a moral stand unless doing so is profitable because they are legally required to make the choices that lead to the most profit. Generally they only take a moral stand if they can do so with scrap change that won’t significantly cost their business, doing so reduces regulatory pressure, they can use it for marketing, and/or if it helps differentiate themselves from competitors. For example Apple makes privacy a huge moral stand because they make all their money on hardware sales and they don’t really care about user data while Google and meta, their biggest competitors, make almost all their money on your data.
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3BlindMice1 May 12, 2026 +2
You're incorrect. Microsoft is legally obligated to maximize profit for their shareholders.
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delirium_red May 12, 2026 +1
But let's hate on the regulators! Free market hurrr durrrr!
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Crim91 May 12, 2026 -37
> ...obviously not taking a moral stand or anything, no reasonable person should expect a corporation to do that. I hope this is sarcasm. Because otherwise this is the choice of words of a psychopath, supporting other psychopaths.
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charavaka May 12, 2026 +24
It's neither. It's a simple statement of facts. This reality must be acknowledged before systems can be put in place for holding corporations and nations accountable for their crimes against humanity. 
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defensivedig0 May 12, 2026 +35
It is both not sarcasm, nor is it psychopathic. It's just saying that corporations are amoral(immoral imo) machines driven by cash and only cash. They simply do not care about morals. Nestle kills kids for profit. Coke had(has?) death squads. Saying no reasonable person should expect corporations to do things out of a sense of morality isn't the same as saying companies should not do things out of a sense of morality.
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Crim91 May 12, 2026 -12
> companies should not do things out of a sense of morality. Why is that different? is it unreasonable to expect that? On a planet full of living, fragile, creatures... why can't we expect that the actions of those creatures on our planet help us survive?
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defensivedig0 May 12, 2026 +18
It's difference because should and will are different. We should be able to expect it. But it's like watching a guy walk up to and shoot 500 people in a row and then walk up to a 501st person and expecting them to not shoot. He *shouldn't* shoot. No one is arguing he *should* shoot. But he's obviously going to shoot. Historically, large corporations doing things for anything other than profit is essentially unheard of. So we should not expect them to do things out of the goodness of their hearts. What we *should* do, instead of expecting the objectively evil people to magically stop being evil, is to a) regulate them into doing things for reason other than profit, b) restructure the system so that doing immoral shit isn't profitable, and c) restructure the system so profit isn't even the ultimate goal.
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Crim91 May 12, 2026 -9
> What we *should* do... Well it seems like none of those things you suggested have worked (at least not well enough based on where we are now). So now what? How do we get the **people** inside and protected by these companies, to do this themselves? or at minimum, stop be psychopathic?
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defensivedig0 May 12, 2026 +11
By doing the above. You make it either unprofitable to me evil, you make it structurally impossible to be evil, or you make profit not the motive. Otherwise there is no way. They haven't not worked. They simply havent been done. But people tend to do as incentives lead them to. The incentives(and often legal obligation) are to be evil. As long as that is the case, these companies will keep being evil. Unless you have a better idea? Get on our knees and offer to blow Mr Nadella every day he isn't evil? Ask Musk politely to stop being the largest distributor of CSAM in the world? Like, idk man. You said that expecting evil people to be evil is sociopathic. Im not saying I have a law written up on how to fix it. Im just saying expecting evil corporations to be evil is simply being aware.
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charavaka May 12, 2026 +1
Expecting a psychopath to not display psychopathic behaviour on their own is a losing game. They must be forced to conform to the norms of acceptable  behaviour. 
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Lonely_Noyaaa May 12, 2026 +177
> The Azure servers used by the Israeli government to store surveillance data were based in Europe, potentially putting Microsoft at risk from scrutiny by EU regulators. It is telling that it took a potential multi billion dollar fine from European regulators to get Microsoft to act on something employees and human rights groups have been screaming about for years. The financial risk to the bottom line, not just ethics, is what likely sealed the deal here.
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stainless5 May 12, 2026 +17
I wonder if the only reason they got  fired is because they were storing the information on European servers. I wonder if they sent all the information to the US, it wouldn't have mattered. 
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Lucifer3130 May 12, 2026 +4
Which is kinda of crazy to think about why it took this long, what Israel and the current US admin is doing is never good for the bottom line
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m3R000 May 12, 2026 +189
Is there a law the Israelis hasn't broken against the Palestinians at this point?
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Low_Pickle_112 May 12, 2026 +36
If they find it, I'm sure my government will give them some more money to do it.
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ap191 May 12, 2026 +30
Prob not. Personally, I've started skipping Israeli headlines. It’s just too depressing to see the same cycle continue without any real progress.
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zirky May 12, 2026 +7
so were they outraged at the actions or were they outraged that they used the wrong servers?
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OpLeeftijd May 12, 2026 +7
Too late. Europe, and it's citizens, have caught on to the risk. We will be distancing ourselves. That is, those that have not yet.
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Big-Option3118 May 12, 2026 +1
It's nice to be optimistic but the fact is that the major European leaders are all in Israel's pocket.
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Farfignugen42 May 12, 2026 +4
It's going to take a lot more than this to get me to like Microsoft, but this is a small step in the right direction. I don't expect any follow up, but at least this time protecting the corporation does not align with spying for Israel.
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TooMad May 12, 2026 +13
The surveillance? Or getting caught?
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UnsavouryFibrosis May 12, 2026 +16
Damn, the eu lowkey fire. As an American, I appreciate usb c
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ThatOneGuyHOTS May 12, 2026
Same here!
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Tile-Questioner May 12, 2026 +2
The punishment is nowhere near harsh enough. Commit a genocide and only get fired from your job because you lied about it?
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Capital-Control308 May 12, 2026 +5
Back in the early 1990s I worked for an Israeli company in Los Angeles. They had a lot of people from Israel there. They were very opinionated to say the least. All of the non Israeli’s working there told me if I wanted a promotion I had to go to another company because they only promoted Israeli’s.
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BRUNO358 May 12, 2026 +5
Only after public pressure.
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Twoa98 May 12, 2026 +3
Morality aside, it's concerning that state entities view it as increasingly acceptable to just decide whether or not/where specific privately owned companies should be allowed to operate in areas beyond it's jurisdiction. I don't particularly see this situation as being vastly different from that of potential US restriction of Mastercard/Visa services to Europe, and the same arguments for and against should apply. Conversely, if the upholding of morality is to be something policed by state entities, I await the day where similar regulatory/compliance standards apply to "domestic" exporters of similar human rights abuses such as nestle.
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Elavia_ May 12, 2026 +1
You realise this has been a thing for at least decades, right? Just usually in regards to hardware.
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Luka77GOATic May 12, 2026 +1
I mean Microsoft can build servers in Israel or the Middle East if they want to avoid EU issues. Using EU servers for this juts makes them morons.
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GamingIsNotAChoice May 12, 2026
Doing the right thing for all the wrong reasons does not get you any points.
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4everbananad May 12, 2026 +1
now when are we going to fire the israelis in the US govt?
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