Some additional details: The proposal was submitted by an individual shareholder.
She requests that the Board "commission a report assessing the implications of siting Microsoft cloud datacenters in countries of significant human rights concern, and the Company’s strategies for mitigating these impacts."
She specifically cites the 2024 completion of a Microsoft datacenter in Saudi Arabia, citing a "State Department report [that] details the highly restrictive Saudi control of all internet activities and pervasive government surveillance, arrest, and prosecution of online activity."
The Board opposes the proposal because it believes Microsoft already discloses extensive disclosures on key human rights risks, and has an independent assessment each year of how they manage risks and its commitment to protecting freedom of expression and user privacy. They also re-iterate the need to comply with local laws and legally binding requests for customer data.
The proposal is non-binding, so the Board doesn't have to act on it even in the unlikely event it gets majority support (ESG proposals rarely do, especially in this environment). In practice many Boards do choose to act on majority-supported non-binding shareholder proposals, though, because many shareholders will vote against directors the following year if they don't.
> Norway’s $2 trillion wealth fund said on Sunday it would vote for a shareholder proposal
> Microsoft management had recommended shareholders voted against the motion.
Ok, cool, but what about the reasons for those actions? What kind of lazy journalism is this? I guess it's nice that we know that something is happening, but what about reaching out to people and asking them why so people can actually understand? For the love of Adam Smith, at least mention the involved countries!
https://collaborate.unpri.org/group/35676/stream
Saudi Arabia
> For the love of Adam Smith, at least mention the involved countries!
Nobody wants to be called an antisemite, so they won't mention the involved country.
Since it doesn't say it in the article, the human rights they're referring to is that Microsoft was caught providing Azure services to the Israeli army's unit 8200, which used them to surveil millions of hours of Palestinian calls.
Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Palantir are all providing cloud and AI services to Israel which it uses it the genocide in Gaza and the continued military occupation of Palestine.
- https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/aug/09/microsoft...
- https://www.972mag.com/microsoft-8200-intelligence-surveilla...
- https://afsc.org/newsroom/unprecedented-investor-action-dema...
- https://countercurrents.org/2025/11/microsoft-ignites-protes...
Yes, let’s go after US Steel because some guy with a gun shot up a school.
Unless Microsoft is directly supplying the software which surveils instead of just “general purpose compute” this isn’t as big as Norway would want you to believe. They can just terminate the accounts as violations of terms of service and claim that millions of users use azure cloud to serve websites and content, the dance will go on.
I don’t think punishing the steel maker for a gun maker who sold it to a distributor who then sold it to a nut job should be liable for the nut job. This is the same for tech. Sub contractors for Israel government got Azure hosting and subbed it out to Palantir to plant their platform inside (gun maker) and then sold it to Israel (nut job).
Palantir on the other hand…
> Unless Microsoft is directly supplying the software which surveils instead of just “general purpose compute” this isn’t as big as Norway would want you to believe. They can just terminate the accounts as violations of terms of service
They did: https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2025/09/25/update-...
Doesn't the article you linked contradict that? It sounds like they're claiming they only provided general purpose blob storage.
> First, we do not provide technology to facilitate mass surveillance of civilians. We have applied this principle in every country around the world, and we have insisted on it repeatedly for more than two decades. This is why we explained publicly on August 15 that Microsoft’s standard terms of service prohibit the use of our technology for mass surveillance of civilians.
The Norway wealth fund is a co owner of Microsoft, like everyone with shares. Google says they own 1.35%, worth 50 billion.
If they want Microsoft not to provide "general compute" to the Israeli army then they can try to get a majority of Microsft owners to go along with it.
I think that's not the same as pressure on Microsoft from the outside.
Yes, its general purpose compute. But if you or me use Azure for illegal purpose (pirated content, tax evasion, violence etc etc..), for sure Microsoft won't be sitting idle.
providing compute to someone online radicals happen to not like is not an illegal purpose
What about providing compute to a criminal with an arrest warrant by the ICJ?
Norway's sovereign wealth fund are not "online radicals", and many genocide scholars, UN bodies, etc. have also found that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians.
If you want to dispute that claim, fine; reasonable people can disagree about the definition of "genocide" and about what standard of proof is necessary. However, reducing the opposing opinion to "online radicals" is inaccurate.
If Microsoft were providing "general purpose compute to Iran" the US would sanction them.
Sure, who could blame companies exporting steel to Nazi Germany! Surely some of that steel was going into building hospitals and civilian infrastructure, why focus on the but that were going to a spot of genocide and senseless war!
That's the yardstick people use to measure Sweden, yes. Similarly applicable here.
Sweden was under threat of invasion and still helped the allies, what's Microsoft's excuse?
They like money.
"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department, says Verner Von Braun."
It's relevant because Microsoft, like all big companies, have Human Rights Pricinples and such that are part of the company. It's basically impossible to get big institutional investment without it.
The issue is that they were caught not following their practices, and then lying about it. So the shareholders are asking that they produce a report about whether they are following their own human rights principles.
And Satya is resisting it, because it is very clear that they are not following them, as workers [1] have been calling out for years now. Many leaked documents have shown that Microsoft actually embeds employees directly with the IDF and makes millions in service contracts with them. [2]
[1] https://noazureforapartheid.com/ [2] https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/microsoft-azure-israel-top-cu...
For anyone that is still green on company politics, all company principles are check boxes that form part of an HR circus of yearly compliance trainings, and marketing for young employees that are naive enough to think they mean anything.
Perhaps this reflects your experience, in your part of the world. In some parts of the world, principles and ethics do count, and don’t change on a dime (as they do in the US).
Several European countries.
Regardless of the part of the world, corruption happens when the right price gets negotiated.
It can be money, a favour, need to help someone in need, needing to meet specific sales KPIs,...
>Many leaked documents have shown that Microsoft actually embeds employees directly with the IDF.
Are you sure it's not the other way around?
Actually we should as well, given the shady deals some of them make with politicians, which create a set of cascading events that end up in school shootings as if they were good old saloon fights.
Should we start regulating 3D printers and CNC mills next?
If the number of people killed by guns made at home with 3D printers or CNC mills gets to the same ballpark as those killed by commercial guns, sure, it's a conversation to have.
Probably yes, if everyone starts building guns with them.