Microsoft Workers Protest Army Contract: ‘We Did Not Sign Up to Develop Weapons’

Microsoft employees wrote a letter to the tech giant on Friday, calling for leadership to cancel its almost $480 million contract with the U.S. Army. The letter stated that the contract, signed late last year, “crossed the line into weapons development.” According to NPR, the open letter reportedly said the company's HoloLens augmented reality technology “is designed to help people kill” by allowing soldiers to increase their “lethality, mobility, and situational awareness.” “We are alarmed that Microsoft is working to provide weapons technology to the U.S. Military, helping one country's government 'increase lethality' using tools we built,” the letter read. “We did not sign up to develop weapons, and we demand a say in how our work is used.” A tweet publicizing the letter featured a link where employees could sign, but the petition was not available for viewing for non-Microsoft employees. According to Bloomberg, the November contract between the tech company and the Army could lead the military branch to buy over “100,000 headsets” from Microsoft.