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Amazon suspended a software engineer who protested the company’s work with the Israeli government, CNBC has confirmed.

Ahmed Shahrour, a Palestinian engineer who works for Amazon’s Whole Foods business and is based in Seattle, was informed Monday morning that he was being suspended with pay “until further notice” after he posted messages on Slack criticizing the company’s ties to Israel.

“It has come to Amazon’s attention that a post you made in multiple internal company Slack channels may violate multiple policies,” an Amazon human resources representative wrote in a message, which was viewed by CNBC. The company said in the message that it’s investigating the incident.

Earlier Monday, Shahrour posted messages across several internal Slack channels and sent a letter to Amazon executives, including CEO Andy Jassy, detailing his concerns.

Shahrour urged the company to drop Project Nimbus, Amazon and Google’s joint $1.2 billion cloud computing contract launched in 2021 to provide the Israeli government with artificial intelligence tools, data centers and other infrastructure.

“Every day I write code at Whole Foods, I remember my brothers and sisters in Gaza being starved by Israel’s man-made blockade,” Shahrour, who joined Amazon three years ago, wrote in the letter. “I live in a state of constant dissonance: maintaining the tools that make this company profit, while my people are burned and starved with the help of that very profit. I am left with no choice but to resist directly.”

The letter was earlier reported by independent journalist Kali Hays.

Amazon spokesperson Brad Glasser didn’t specifically address Shahrour’s situation.

“We don’t tolerate discrimination, harassment, or threatening behavior or language of any kind in our workplace, and when any conduct of that nature is reported, we investigate it and take appropriate action based on our findings,” Glasser wrote in an email to CNBC.

The company didn’t respond to questions about its work with Israel or its policies for moderating employee posts on internal channels.

Tech workers at Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Palantir and other companies have become more outspoken in their criticism of business dealings with the Israeli military.

Microsoft last month fired two employees who participated in a protest inside the company’s headquarters. In April 2024, Google terminated 28 employees after a series of protests against labor conditions and its involvement in Project Nimbus. Tech firms have ramped up security at some conferences in recent months after an uptick in protests.

Amazon hasn’t acknowledged the Nimbus contract beyond stating that it provides technology to customers “wherever they are located.” Google has previously said it provides generally available cloud computing services to the Israeli government that aren’t “directed at highly sensitive, classified or military workloads.” Microsoft said last month that most of its work with Israel Defense Forces involves cybersecurity for the country, and that the company intends to provide technology in an ethical way.

As part of the suspension, Amazon revoked Shahrour’s access to company email and tools, and removed his Slack posts, he told CNBC in an interview. Shahrour said Amazon didn’t state what policies his posts violated.

The letter also alleges Amazon has taken steps to “silence” pro-Palestinian employees who have criticized the war in Gaza. Amazon recently issued a warning to an engineer who shared an article about American doctors volunteering in Gaza and it fired an employee in France who spoke out against Israel on social media, Shahrour said. CNBC confirmed the account with a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named due to confidentiality.

The company has deleted posts in the “Arabs at Amazon” Slack channel that discussed the conflict in Gaza, while posts in other channels disparaging Palestinians weren’t removed, Shahrour said.

“It feels like I can’t voice anything, and if I do, I’m going to get a warning,” he said.

Microsoft employees earlier this year expressed concern that the company blocked Outlook emails containing the words “Palestine,” “Gaza,” “genocide,” “apartheid” and “IOF off Azure,” while messages with the word “Israel” could go through, CNBC reported in May.

A Microsoft spokesperson previously said the company took steps to “try and reduce” widely shared emails that were sent to employees who hadn’t “opted in.”

WATCH: Israel’s plays to take over Gaza City

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Joby lawsuit accuses air taxi rival Archer of using stolen information to ‘one-up’ deal

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Joby lawsuit accuses air taxi rival Archer of using stolen information to 'one-up' deal

An electric air taxi by Joby Aviation flies near the Downtown Manhattan Heliport in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., November 12, 2023.

Roselle Chen | Reuters

Air taxi maker Joby Aviation in a new lawsuit accused competitor Archer Aviation of using stolen information by a former employee to “one-up” a partnership deal with a real estate developer.

“This is corporate espionage, planned and premeditated,” Joby said in the lawsuit filed Wednesday in a California Superior Court in Santa Cruz, where the company is based.

Archer and Joby did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

The lawsuit alleges that former U.S. state and local policy lead, George Kivork, downloaded dozens of files and sent some content to his personal email two days before he resigned in July to take a job at Archer, which had recruited him.

By August, Joby said a partner that worked with Kivork said it had been approached by Archer with a “more lucrative deal.” Joby alleges that the eVTOL rival’s understanding of “highly confidential” details helped it leverage negotiations.

Joby also said the developer attempted to terminate the agreement, citing a breach of confidentiality.

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Kivork refused to return the files when Joby approached him after conducting an investigation, according to the suit. The company also said Archer denied wrongdoing, and would not disclose how it learned about the terms of the agreement or provide results from an internal investigation it allegedly undertook.

The lawsuit comes during a busy period for electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) technology as companies race to gain Federal Aviation Administration certification to start flying commercially. ‘

The sector has also benefitted from President Donald Trump‘s newly minted eVTOL pilot program.

Joby argued in the complaint that it’s “imperative” to protect Joby’s work “from this type of espionage” to promote the sector’s success and ensure fair competition.

Last week, Joby said it completed its first test flight for a hybrid aircraft it’s working on with defense contractor L3Harris. This month, Amazon-backed Beta Technologies, another electric flight company, also went public on the New York Stock Exchange.

Joby shares have more than doubled over the last year, while Archer is up about 68%.

In August 2023, Archer settled a previous legal dispute with Boeing-owned Wisk Aero over the alleged theft of trade secrets. As part of the deal, Archer agreed to use Wisk as its autonomous tech partner.

A hearing is scheduled for March 20, 2026.

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Joby and Archer year-to-date stock chart.

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Jobs data muddies the picture for a December rate cut, while the Nvidia rally fizzles

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Jobs data muddies the picture for a December rate cut, while the Nvidia rally fizzles

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Bitcoin falls to lowest level since April

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Bitcoin falls to lowest level since April

Andriy Onufriyenko | Moment | Getty Images

Bitcoin dropped on Thursday to levels not seen in more than six months, as investors appeared to pull back exposure to riskier assets and weighed the prospects of another Federal Reserve rate cut next month.

The flagship digital currency fell to as low as $86,325.81, its lowest level since April 21. It last traded at $86,690.11.

The release of stronger-than-expected U.S. jobs data raised questions about whether the central bank would lower its benchmark overnight rate. The U.S. economy added 119,000 in September, well above the 50,000 economists polled by Dow Jones expected.

That report sent the probability of a December rate cut to around 40%, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool.

Bitcoin’s pullback formed part of a broader cryptocurrency market decline. XRP was last down 2.3% on the day, and is below $2.00, while ether shed more than 3% to trade well below $3,000. Dogecoin was unchanged.

The world’s oldest crypto also led stocks lower, even after a blockbuster Nvidia earnings report. Traders who are heavily invested in AI-related stocks tend to also hold bitcoin, linking the two trades.

Bitcoin’s price has largely slid since a rash of cascading liquidations of highly leveraged crypto positions in early October.

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