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is a senior reporter covering technology, gaming, and more. He joined The Verge in 2019 after nearly two years at Techmeme.
Elon Musk is pressing Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to look into Blizzard employees who criticized Charlie Kirk after his death. Musk’s post quotes an X thread listing names and screenshots of the developers.
“What’s going on here, @satyanadella?” Musk said. “These are Microsoft employees,” he added in another post.
Musk’s direct question to Nadella follows a broader censorship crackdown from Republicans targeting individuals celebrating Kirk’s death or criticizing him. Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) said he would use “Congressional authority and every influence with big tech platforms to mandate immediate ban for life of every post or commenter that belittled the assassination of Charlie Kirk.”
Former Blizzard developer Mark Kern, who goes by “Grummz” online and frequently posts about right-wing issues on X, quoted the original thread, claiming that the screenshotted posts showed Blizzard employees “trashing” Kirk. Musk then quoted the post himself with his question to Nadella.
“We’re aware of the views expressed by a small subset of our employees regarding recent events,” Microsoft said in a post on X. The post is not a reply to Musk but was shared on its main @Microsoft page. “We take matters like this very seriously and we are currently reviewing each individual situation. Comments celebrating violence against anyone are unacceptable and do not align with our values.” (The screenshots in the thread shared by Musk do not celebrate the shooting against Kirk.) Nadella has not replied to Musk publicly as of this writing.
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