Microsoft Corporation

1. Who They Are

Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT), headquartered in Redmond, Washington, is the world's second-largest cloud provider (Azure) and the owner of Windows, Office/Microsoft 365, LinkedIn, and GitHub. Satya Nadella is CEO; Brad Smith is president and vice chair. Following OpenAI's October 2025 restructuring, Microsoft holds roughly a 27 percent stake in OpenAI's for-profit arm, worth around $135 billion.

2. What the Book Documents

No Ethics in Big Tech names Microsoft as a pillar of the 21st-century military-industrial complex (Chapter Thirteen): "Without Microsoft's cloud infrastructure, the surveillance data cannot be processed at the required scale." The book documents:

• The doubling of Israeli military data stored on Microsoft servers in the first months of the Gaza war, reaching more than 13.6 petabytes by July 2024, and a spike in Israel's use of OpenAI technology — purchased through Microsoft's Azure platform — to nearly 200 times its pre-war level, drawing on the investigations by the Guardian, +972 Magazine, Local Call, and the Associated Press.

• LinkedIn — what the book calls "BrowserGate": a covert system scanning 6,167 browser extensions on users' machines without knowledge or consent, documented in the book's surveillance chapters.

• The Epstein-network chapter documents that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates held six separate meetings with Jeffrey Epstein after his conviction, and that LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn was later acquired by Microsoft) attended post-conviction dinners with Epstein — conduct both men have publicly acknowledged and expressed regret for. Each is profiled separately.

3. Verified Fines, Penalties and Settlements (2020 – present)

Sources: Irish DPC official press release · SAMexpert Microsoft regulatory roundup 2025

4. Azure, Unit 8200, and the Surveillance of Palestinians — the Documented Record

• August 6, 2025: a joint investigation by the Guardian, +972 Magazine and Local Call revealed that Israel's Unit 8200 used Microsoft Azure to store and process an indiscriminate archive of intercepted Palestinian phone calls from Gaza and the West Bank — reported at up to 8,000 terabytes held in a Microsoft data center in the Netherlands, rising to roughly 11,500 terabytes (about 200 million hours of audio) by July 2025 — data reportedly used to plan airstrikes and arrests. Source: +972 Magazine

• September 25, 2025: Microsoft president Brad Smith told employees the company had "ceased and disabled" a set of services to a unit within the Israel Ministry of Defense after its review found evidence supporting elements of the Guardian's reporting, stating that Microsoft does not provide technology to facilitate mass surveillance of civilians. It was reported as the first time a major US tech company revoked any Israeli military access to its products since the war began. Sources: Business & Human Rights Resource Centre · GeekWire

• Amnesty International welcomed the termination but demanded Microsoft investigate all of its contracts and transfers to Israel. The employee campaign No Azure for Apartheid — whose members staged protests and sit-ins, including at the Redmond headquarters — called the decision an unprecedented but insufficient win. Earlier, in May 2025, Microsoft had acknowledged selling advanced AI and cloud services to the Israeli military during the war while asserting an internal review found no evidence of its tools being used to harm civilians — a claim the subsequent investigations and Microsoft's own September decision place in a different light. Source: Amnesty International

5. Antitrust Record and Pending Investigations

• EU Teams tying case (AT.40721 and AT.40873): following complaints by Slack (Salesforce) and alfaview, the European Commission's June 25, 2024 Statement of Objections found preliminarily that Microsoft abused its dominance since at least April 2019 by tying Teams to Office 365/Microsoft 365. On September 12, 2025 the Commission made Microsoft's commitments legally binding for seven to ten years (unbundled cheaper suites, interoperability, data portability), sparing Microsoft a fine that could have reached 10 percent of global turnover — roughly $24 billion. Reporting notes Microsoft rebundled Teams globally in November 2025 while engineering price neutrality — conduct that remains under the Commission's compliance watch. Sources: European Commission summary decision (EUR-Lex) · CNBC

• United Kingdom: the Competition and Markets Authority concluded that competition in cloud services "is not working well" and recommended Strategic Market Status investigations of Microsoft and AWS beginning in early 2026. A UK class action on behalf of tens of thousands of British businesses over Microsoft licensing practices remains at the procedural stage.

• United States: the Federal Trade Commission opened its most comprehensive investigation of Microsoft since the 1990s landmark case (cloud, licensing, AI); it remains pending without public developments reported since March 2025.

• European Union: in November 2025 the Commission opened Digital Markets Act investigations examining whether Azure (and AWS) should be designated as gatekeeper cloud services. Source: SAMexpert regulatory roundup

6. Associations Noted in the Book

Satya Nadella (CEO), Bill Gates (co-founder), and Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn co-founder, Microsoft board member) are each profiled in separate executive fact sheets, as is partner company OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman. Associations are noted for context only; every company and person is documented on its own record.

Legal Disclaimer

This document is published as journalism and commentary in the public interest, protected as free speech and freedom of the press under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It compiles information from public records, court filings, government announcements, parliamentary and congressional investigations, and reporting by established news organizations, together with the documented first-person accounts and analysis published in the books No Ethics in Big Tech and Ethics in Tech and Lack Thereof by Vahid Razavi.

Where a fine, judgment, or settlement is described, its status (paid, under appeal, overturned, or pending) is stated as reported by the issuing authority or by reputable press as of the verification date above. Allegations in open lawsuits and investigations are exactly that — allegations — and every party is entitled to the presumption of innocence unless and until a competent court rules otherwise. Where a company or executive has prevailed in court, denied an allegation, or had a claim dismissed, that outcome is reported here as well, because the credibility of this project rests on stating the record in full. Opinions and characterizations drawn from the books are the protected opinion of the author. Corrections supported by documentation are welcome via NoEthicsInBigTech.com/contact.

Research Credit

Deep research, source verification, and document preparation for this fact sheet were performed by Claude, the AI assistant built by Anthropic, working under the direction of author Vahid Razavi. Every fine amount, case citation, and status line above was checked against the primary or press source listed beside it on the verification date. This is a living document; new rulings, fines, and investigations will be added as they are verified.