Security officers block entrance doors after pro-Palestinian protesters attempted to enter the Microsoft Build conference at the Seattle Convention Center Arch building in Seattle, Washington on May 19, 2025.
Jason Redmond | Afp | Getty Images
Microsoft employees are concerned that the company has been blocking Outlook emails containing the words “Palestine,” “Gaza,” “genocide,” “apartheid” and “IOF off Azure,” even if they’re including those terms in an HR complaint, according to screenshots, recordings and documents viewed by CNBC.
Employees said they started noticing the change Wednesday just before noon PST, batch-testing emails with the terms in question and emails without them. Only the ones without such terms appeared in their outboxes, suggesting those containing the terms weren’t received, according to materials viewed by CNBC and three sources familiar with the matter.
The people asked not to be named in order to speak freely.
One employee with the word “apartheid” in their email signature, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said they sent a typical work-related email around 11:30 a.m. PST on Wednesday successfully. The person said that just before noon on the same day, their emails wouldn’t go through — ostensibly due to their email signature.
On internal message boards, messages seen by CNBC showed employees asking why their emails with the word “Israel” may go through but not the word “Palestine,” as well as “Gaza” and other terms. Modifications like “P4lestine” did go through, according to their tests.
One employee asked on an internal message board, “Is the company abandoning the inclusivity initiative or is this only targeting Palestinians and their allies?”
The Verge was first to report on the potential email block.
In a message seen by CNBC, Frank Shaw, Microsoft’s chief communications officer, responded to an employee post, writing: “To clarify, emails are not being blocked or censored, unless they are being sent to large numbers of random distribution groups. There can be a small delay and the team is working to make that as short as possible.”
“Over the past couple of days, a number of emails have been sent to tens of thousands of employees across the company and we have taken measures to try and reduce those emails to those that have not opted in,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement.
But employees told CNBC that even when they attempted to send relatively mundane, solely work-related emails to small groups of colleagues, the emails still didn’t go through if they contained those terms.
Another employee who spoke on condition of anonymity said that when they attempted to send a report to HR containing one of the terms in question, they did not receive the auto-response typically confirming receipt until more than 24 hours later. The message also didn’t show up in the online HR portal until more than 24 hours later.
Some emails were delivered after being delayed by seven hours or more, according to the group No Azure for Apartheid. The group suggested manual reviews of such emails were taking place before they were delivered.
Microsoft protests
Microsoft has seen a growing number of protests at recent events over the Israeli military’s use of the company’s AI products. Protesters have also sent emails to the company’s executives outlining their concerns.
At Microsoft’s Build developer conference in Seattle this week, protesters interrupted executives during keynote speeches and sessions.
On Tuesday, protesters interrupted the Microsoft Build session on best AI security practices, singling out Sarah Bird, Microsoft’s head of responsible AI, who was co-hosting the session with Microsoft AI security chief Neta Haiby.
Haiby was formerly a member of the Israel Defense Forces, according to a Tumblr page viewed by CNBC.
“Sarah Bird, you are whitewashing the crimes of Microsoft in Palestine,” Hossam Nasr, an organizer with the group No Azure for Apartheid, said.
Nasr was one of the Microsoft employees terminated last year after planning a vigil for Palestinians killed in Gaza.
Earlier on Tuesday during another Microsoft Build session, an unnamed Palestinian tech worker disrupted a speech by Jay Parikh, Microsoft’s head of CoreAI.
“Jay, you are complicit in the genocide in Gaza,” the tech worker, who did not wish to share their name for fear of retaliation, said. “My people are suffering because of you. How dare you. How dare you talk about AI when my people are suffering. Cut ties with Israel.”
The worker then called to “free Palestine” and said, “No Azure for apartheid,” a nod to the group and its petition.
A demonstrator is removed from the audience as they interrupt a presentation by Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella at the Microsoft Build 2025 conference in Seattle, Washington on May 19, 2025.
Jason Redmond | AFP | Getty Images
On Monday, Microsoft software engineer Joe Lopez interrupted CEO Satya Nadella’s keynote speech onstage, saying, “Satya, how about you show them how Microsoft is killing Palestinians? How about you show them how Israeli war crimes are powered by Azure?”
Lopez was later fired, according to a document viewed by CNBC that stated the reason as, “misconduct resulting in the violation of both company policy and our expectations of a respectful workplace.”
The document said Lopez would be ineligible to return to Microsoft as an employee, contractor, or in any other capacity, including an employee of a Microsoft partner, customer or other third party.
At Microsoft’s 50th anniversary event last month, two Microsoft software engineers publicly protested the use of the company’s AI by the Israeli military during executive presentations. The roles of both employees, Ibtihal Aboussad and Vaniya Agrawal, were terminated soon after, according to documents viewed by CNBC.
Microsoft‘s Outlook email service malfunctioned for several hours Wednesday and Thursday, prompting some people to post on social media about the inability to reach their virtual mailboxes.
The issue began at 6:20 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, according to a dashboard the software company maintains. It affected Outlook.com as well as Outlook mobile apps and desktop programs.
At 12:21 ET the Microsoft 365 Status account posted that it was rolling out a fix.
“Our configuration changes have effectively resolved impact in targeted infrastructure. We’re now deploying the changes worldwide to resolve impact for all users,” Microsoft said in an X post on Thursday afternoon.
The company’s status page said “most impacted users will experience relief within the next two hours,” and that it was continuing to monitor the service.
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On social media, some people reported that Outlook was functioning properly after hours of users posting about problems.
With hundreds of millions of active users, Outlook is important, although Apple and Google‘s email clients are more popular, according to data from analytics company Litmus.
A worker prepares orders at an Amazon.com Inc. fulfillment center.
Jason Alden | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Daphnee Poteau, a Haitian who came to the U.S in 2023, began working for Amazon last year at a returns center in Indianapolis. While packing up boxes, she met her husband Kristopher Vincent, who’s been at the site, known as IND8, since 2013.
Last month, Poteau was contacted by the Department of Homeland Security, after the Trump administrationcanceled humanitarian immigration programs that allowed participants to live and work legally in the U.S. for two years while applying for permanent status.
A notice from DHS told Poteau that her parole program was being terminated. Her last day at Amazon was June 28. She’s among a group of warehouse workers whose jobs have been eliminated since DHS revoked the parole program that was created during the Biden administration.
While Poteau tries to secure a spousal visa, her future in the U.S. is uncertain. She and Vincent, who’s from Indiana, said they’re concerned about being able to afford rent and costly immigration fees.
“We’re taking it one day at a time, but it does leave me stressed that they’re going to come and try to get her, even though she does have an asylum case pending in court,” Vincent said in an interview.
“Everything we’ve seen in the news shows they flagrantly no longer care what the laws say,” Vincent said.
Poteau and her terminated co-workers had been protected under programs that provided Haitians, Cubans, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans with temporary legal status in the U.S. Many of the employees at IND8 are Haitian, a large enough contingent that some of the morning staff meetings are translated into Creole, Vincent said.
Daphnee Poteau met her husband Kristopher Vincent while working at an Amazon warehouse in Indianapolis.
Kristopher Vincent
Amazon last month began asking staffers who came to the U.S. under the Biden-era program to provide updated work permits within a certain timeframe or they would be put on unpaid leave, according to documents viewed by CNBC.
Several workers who spoke to CNBC said they were dismissed by Amazon in late June after they couldn’t get new work authorizations.
Amazon declined to say how many employees were let go following the changes in immigration policy, but spokesperson Richard Rocha said the company prepared for potential staffing impacts due to changes in work authorization programs, and made adjustments to be in compliance with the law.
“We’re supporting employees impacted by the government’s recent changes in immigration policy,” Rocha said in a statement. “Over the past few months, we’ve been in regular communication with these employees about the changes and are ensuring they’re aware of all available resources.”
The company has provided impacted employees with information about where to find free or low-cost legal services, access to counseling support and other resources, Rocha said.
A DHS spokesperson pointed to the agency’s announcement terminating the humanitarian parole program.
Fired before Prime Day
As part of the Trump administration’s broad immigration crackdown, DHS has eliminated not just the humanitarian parole program. It’s also ended separate programs that provided temporary protected status to Venezuelans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Hondurans seeking refuge from their native countries, which have suffered from armed conflict and humanitarian crises. Last week, a federal judge ruled the Trump administration can’t revoke the temporary protected status, or TPS, of Haitian migrants. The White House said it will appeal the ruling.
Amazon is far from alone. Other companies including Walmart and Disney have been forced to fire employees or put them on leave in order to comply with shifting federal policies.
Among private employers in the U.S., only Walmart has a bigger workforce than Amazon. Most of the e-commerce giant’s 1.56 million employees globally are concentrated in its warehouse operations.
The terminations started just as Amazon was gearing up for its annual Prime Day discount blitz, which began on Tuesday and lasts four days. The event is typically one of the busiest periods of the year for Amazon warehouse and delivery employees, alongside the holiday shopping season.
Amazon has counted on immigrants to meet a big part of its staffing needs. In 2022, the company set a goal to hire 5,000 refugees and other forcibly displaced individuals by the end of 2024.
While Trump’s policies create a challenge for large employers like Amazon, the real devastation is being felt by the immigrant workers. Those who now find themselves unemployed and lacking documentation are at a higher risk of being targeted for deportation unless they can secure an alternative form of legal status.
Christopher Lubin, an Amazon warehouse worker in Delaware, lost his job at the company on June 27, a day before Poteau received her notice.
“We have done everything legally in this country,” said Lubin, 24, who is also from Haiti. “We haven’t committed fraud. We go to school, we work, and we pay taxes.”
DHS said it was revoking protections for Haitian nationals after a review by Secretary Kristi Noem determined “country conditions have improved to the point where Haitians can return home in safety.”
The U.S. granted TPS for Haitian nationals following a catastrophic earthquake in 2008 that destroyed much of the nation’s infrastructure. In 2024, the TPS designation was extended through February 2026, as the country faced “rapidly deteriorating security, human rights and humanitarian” conditions, according to the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Armed gangs control the majority of Port-au-Prince and violence has spread beyond the capital in recent months. About 10 individuals from Haiti lost their jobs at an Amazon warehouse in Spokane, Washington, after DHS revoked the TPS program, said Katia Jasmin, executive director of Creole Resources, which provides support to Haitian immigrants in the region.
Serge, who asked to have his full name withheld out of fear of being targeted for deportation, came to the U.S. from Haiti nearly two years ago and secured a job at the Spokane warehouse as a packer. The situation in Haiti was dire when he left and it remains unsafe today, Serge said.
“I witnessed violence and trauma, including the loss of family members who were killed,” Serge said. “Others were displaced from their homes and are now homeless. I genuinely feared for my life.”
In desperation, he said he sought a safer future and secured a sponsor that allowed him to come to the U.S. legally. It’s “unjust” that Haitians are now being ordered to return to their home country when it’s plagued with violence, Serge said.
“We’re not just recipients of economic support,” he said. “We’re also contributors who help drive the economy.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends an opening ceremony for Tesla China-made Model Y program in Shanghai, China, on Jan. 7, 2020.
Aly Song | Reuters
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company is expanding its robotaxi service area and bringing xAI’s Grok to vehicles as it rolled out a new iteration of the artificial intelligence chatbot.
Shares gained about 3%.
Musk said on X that Grok, his AI chatbot that praised Adolf Hitler and posted a barrage of antisemitic comments recently, will be available in Tesla vehicles “next week at the latest.”
xAI officially launched the Grok 4 update overnight as the company continued to face backlash for the vitriol written by the chatbot.
In response to a user post on his social media platform X, Musk said the company is expanding its Austin, Texas robotaxi service area this weekend. He also said Tesla is awaiting regulatory approval for a launch in the Bay Area “probably in a month or two.”
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The expansion of robotaxi and Grok integration comes at a fraught time for Musk and his empire.
Tesla set its annual shareholder meeting for Nov. 6, a Thursday filing showed. A group of investors recently called on the electric vehicle company to schedule the meeting.
Its last shareholder meeting was in June 2024, as Musk established himself as a major backer of President Donald Trump‘s reelection campaign. Musk later led the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE.
After stepping down from DOGE at the end of May, Musk has openly feuded with Trump on social media over the major tax bill, with the president suggesting the government look at cutting contracts for Musk’s companies.
Shares have tanked from their post-election high over investor concerns that the public fight could hamper Tesla. Slowing sales and rising competition also stifled some investor appetite.
Tesla shares fell Monday, with the company losing $68 billion in value after Musk continued to blast Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” and said he was establishing his own political party, the “America Party.”
The world’s richest man suffered another blow Wednesday when Linda Yaccarino stepped down as CEO of his social media platform X, leaving the role after a turbulent two years for the company.