Microsoft employee Joe Lopez, who has spent the past four years working as a firmware engineer in the company’s Azure hardware systems team, was one of the protesters who interrupted Nadella. He was also joined by a fired Google employee,

The protest was part of a larger campaign by a group called "No Azure for Apartheid," which includes current and former Microsoft workers.

Earlier during Microsoft’s 50th anniversary celebration, Ibtihal Aboussad raised her voice in protest while the company’s AI CEO, Mustafa Suleyman, spoke from the dais. A day later, an Indian techie, Vaniya Agarwal, reined in and confronted the trio of Satya Nadella, Steve Ballmer, and co-founder of Microsoft Bill Gates.