Pro-Palestinian demonstrators hold banners and signs as they protest outside the Microsoft Build conference at the Seattle Convention Center in Seattle, Washington on May 19, 2025.
Jason Redmond | Afp | Getty Images
Microsoft on Thursday said that it had terminated two employees who broke into President Brad Smith’s office earlier this week.
The news comes after seven current and former Microsoft employees on Tuesday held a protest in the company’s building in Redmond, Washington, in opposition to the Israeli military’s alleged use of the company’s software as part of its invasion of Gaza.
The protesters, affiliated with the group No Azure for Apartheid, gained entry into Smith’s office and had demanded that Microsoft end its direct and indirect support to Israel.
In a post on Instagram, No Azure for Apartheid said Riki Fameli and Anna Hattle had been fired by the company.
“Two employees were terminated today following serious breaches of company policies and our code of conduct,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement, noting unlawful break-ins at the executive offices.
“These incidents are inconsistent with the expectations we maintain for our employees. The company is continuing to investigate and is cooperating fully with law enforcement regarding these matters,” the statement added.
In the aftermath of the protests, Smith claimed that the protestors had blocked people out of the office, planted listening devices in the form of phones, and refused to leave until they were removed by police.
No Azure For Apartheid defines itself as “a movement of Microsoft workers demanding that Microsoft end its direct and indirect complicity in Israeli apartheid and genocide.”
The Guardian earlier this month reported that the Israeli military had used Microsoft’s Azure cloud infrastructure to store the phone calls of Palestinians, leading the company to authorize a third-party investigation into whether its technology has been used in surveillance.
Smith said on Tuesday that the company would “investigate and get to the truth” of how services are being used.
According to Smith, No Azure For Apartheid also mounted protests around the company’s campus last week, leading to 20 arrests in one day, with 16 having never worked at Microsoft.
No Azure for Apartheid has held a series of actions this year, including at Microsoft’s Build developer conference and at a celebration of the company’s 50th anniversary. Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that a Microsoft director had reached out to the Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding the protests.
Microsoft’s actions come after tech giant Google fired 28 employees last year following a series of protests against labor conditions and the company’s contract with the Israeli government and military for cloud computing and artificial intelligence services. In that case, some employees had gained access to the office of Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google’s cloud unit.
Apple has confirmedthat it has removed two popular gay dating apps from its Chinese iOS Store, following an order from Beijing’s main internet regulator and censorship authority.
It comes following reports of the apps — Blued and Finka — suddenly disappearing from the iOS App Store over the weekend.
In a statement shared with CNBC, Apple confirmed that it was behind the action and defended the company’s position, stating that it must follow the laws of the countries where it operates.
“Based on an order from the Cyberspace Administration of China, we have removed these two apps from the China storefront only,” the company said, though they clarified that the apps had already been unavailable in other countries.
However, a “lite” version of the Blued app is still available for download on the China App Store, CNBC confirmed Tuesday.
The Wire had been the first to report that Apple had made the move at Beijing’s order.
The disappearance of Blued and Finka is the latest example of China’s crackdown on app stores in recent years.
Grindr, a popular gay dating app from the U.S., was removed from the iOS store in 2022, days after the Cyberspace Administration of China began a crackdown on content it considered illegal and inappropriate.
Later in 2023, Beijing announced new policies requiring all apps serving local users to register with the government and receive licenses. That move had resulted in a wave of foreign apps being removed from iOS.
The following years have also seen regulators continue to appeal directly to companies like Apple to remove certain apps due to issues with their content.
In April 2024, Apple removed Meta’s WhatsApp and Threads from iOS following an order from the CAC, citing national security concerns.
Apple has proven a willingness to comply with these requests in China, which represents its largest oversea market outside the U.S.
The takedown of Blued and Finka also likely reflects increasing crackdowns and censorship of the LGBTQ community in China. In recent years, the government has shuttered major advocacy groups, including the Beijing LGBT Center.
While homosexuality was decriminalized in China in 1997, same-sex marriage remains unrecognized.
Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., Nov. 10, 2025.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Investors piled back into artificial intelligence names on Monday stateside. Shares of Nvidia jumped 5.8%, Broadcom advanced 2.6% and Microsoft climbed 1.9% to end its eight-day losing streak, its longest consecutive decline since 2011.
Market watchers are hoping that another historically long streak — the U.S. government shutdown — could soon be snapped as well. The U.S. Senate has voted in favor for a deal to reopen the government, though it still has to pass through the House and then be signed into law by President Donald Trump (who has already given it his approval).
CoreWeave on Monday reported its third-quarter earnings. It rents out Nvidia cards to AI-related firms, such as Google and Microsoft, a business model that ties it intimately to the AI trade. The company’s revenue swelled 134% year on year, but it still reported a net loss and gave lower-than-expected guidance for this year.
The general shape of those figures — high revenue and high losses — broadly reminds one of OpenAI, the industry-leading, money-bleeding startup that kickstarted the AI frenzy. Though it would of course be a stretch to equate the two companies and the factors driving their finances.
Still, Mark Haefele, CIO of UBS’s global wealth management, thinks “AI-related stocks should drive equity markets.” With the U.S. government shutdown in sight to end (hopefully this doesn’t jinx it), that’s another obstacle surpassed for markets.
What you need to know today
And finally…
Russian President Vladimir Putin on October 15, 2025.
Russian President Vladimir Putin last week ordered his officials to complete a road map by Dec.1 “for the long-term development of the extraction and production of rare and rare earth metals.”
Moscow has fallen behind peers like China when it comes to the exploitation of its deposits of rare earth elements. While lagging behind the big players, Russia is still estimated to possess the fifth largest known reserves of rare earths, totaling 3.8 million tonnes, the United States Geological Survey stated. That’s above the U.S. which is seen with 1.9 million tonnes.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (L) and the CEO of the SoftBank Group Masayoshi Son pose during an AI event in Tokyo on November 13, 2024.
Akio Kon | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Japanese conglomerate SoftBank said Tuesday it has sold its entire stake in U.S. chipmaker Nvidia for $5.83 billion.
The firm said in its earnings statement that it sold 32.1 million Nvidia shares in October. It also disclosed that it sold part of its T-Mobile stake for $9.17 billion.
The announcement came after SoftBankposted a $19 billion gain on its Vision Fund in its fiscal second quarter, helped by investments in ChatGPT maker OpenAI and electronic payment services firm PayPay.
The Vision Fund has been aggressively pushing into artificial intelligence, investing and acquiring firms throughout the AI value chain from chips to large language models and robotics.
While the Nvidia exit may come as a surprise to some investors, it’s not the first time SoftBank has cashed out of the American AI chip darling.
SoftBank’s Vision Fund was an early backer of Nvidia, reportedly amassing a $4 billion stake in 2017 before selling all of its holdings in January 2019.
Despite its latest sale, SoftBank’s business interests remain heavily intertwined with Nvidia’s.
That Tokyo-based company is involved in a number of AI ventures that rely on Nvidia’s technology, including the $500 billion Stargate project for data centers in the U.S.
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