Microsoft employee Joe Lopez, who has spent the past four years working as a firmware engineer in the company’s Azure hardware systems team, was one of the protesters who interrupted Nadella. He was also joined by a fired Google employee,

Microsoft’s Build conference runs May 19–22, 2025 in Seattle, featuring CEO Satya Nadella’s keynote on AI integrations—from Copilot agents in Windows 11 to enhanced Azure AI services, .NET and GitHub updates,

The protest was part of a larger campaign by a group called "No Azure for Apartheid," which includes current and former Microsoft workers.