After Microsoft left politics mess up with their customer base something like that was to be expected.
The ICC was applauded in the US in the when it went after Russia but when it goes after Israel it is sanctioned. It unfortunately hard to be impartial, like the ICC is, when it comes to international war crimes. The big players want you to play towards their favourites and only hold their enemies accountable.
The US is also sanctioning Palestinian human rights groups, and kicking them off of US platforms like YouTube, because they make Israel look bad: https://theintercept.com/2025/11/04/youtube-google-israel-pa...
Microsoft has to follow US law. If it believes an order has been issued unlawfully, it—and everyone who works there who follows the order—has a civic duty to oppose the order in court.
while operating in the US
While having anything to do with America or the U.S. dollar.
There's an EU law, 'blocking statue' which also means that contracts can't be broken with reference sanctions even if the contracts themselves say they can be, and the services must be provided anyway.
This isn't GDPR type stuff. This is a path to infinite fines. Ending up jail for years is also a distinct possibility if you help people access their data, since spying on these institutions is actually treated as espionage. We recently passed a law here in Sweden forbidding espionage against international organizations in which Sweden is part.
So what you are saying is the worst that could happen is they lose the entire US market, us based datacenters, and us based employees?
I think the question answers itself.
You’re always going to be vulnerable somewhere and there isn’t a better country to be if you’re in software, cloud services or AI.
Not to mention it’s not like Microsoft Execs want to pickup and leave the States either.
Or rather, stealing control from their customers computers is already leaving politics mess up with the customers.