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\n\tThree decades after composing the iconic Windows 95 startup jingle, Brian Eno <\/a>has published an open letter to Microsoft, calling out the company for selling technology to Israel amid the country\u2019s highly criticized war against Hamas.<\/p>\n \n\tIn a statement titled \u201cNot in My Name: An Open Letter to Microsoft From Brian Eno\u201d posted to Instagram Wednesday (May 21), the producer began by writing, \u201cIn the mid-1990s, I was asked to compose a short piece of music for Microsoft\u2019s Windows 95 operating system.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cMillions \u2014 possibly even billions \u2014 of people have since heard that short startup chime, which represented a gateway to a promising technological future,\u201d he continued. \u201cI never would have believed that the same company could one day be implicated in the machinery of oppression and war.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tEno\u2019s words come a few days after Microsoft acknowledged in an unsigned blogpost<\/a> that it sold advanced artificial intelligence and cloud computing services to the Israeli military \u2014 as well as aided in efforts to locate and rescue Israeli hostages \u2014 amid the war in Gaza. Violence has run rampant in the city ever since Hamas attacked and killed about 1,200 Israeli people while taking more than 250 hostage on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel\u2019s ensuing war against the terrorist group has since led to the deaths of more than 53,000 Palestinians, according to the Associated Press<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tIn February, AP<\/a> released an investigative report that found the Israeli military used Microsoft\u2019s Azure platform to transcribe, translate and process intelligence gathered through mass surveillance in its war efforts, among other previously unreported details about the company\u2019s partnership with the Israeli Ministry of Defense.<\/p>\n \n\tAfter hearing concerns about its reported relationship with Israel from employees and members of the public, the tech giant stated in its blogpost that an internal review had been conducted. \u201cWe have found no evidence that Microsoft\u2019s Azure and AI technologies, or any of our other software, have been used to harm people or that IMOD has failed to comply with our terms of service or our AI Code of Conduct,\u201d it reads. \u201cIt is important to acknowledge that Microsoft does not have visibility into how customers use our software on their own servers or other devices.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tRegardless, Eno says the company has an \u201cethical responsibility\u201d to suspend its business relationship with Israel. \u201cThese \u2018services\u2019 support a regime that is engaged in actions described by leading legal scholars and human rights organizations, the United Nations experts and increasing numbers of governments from around the world as genocidal,\u201d he wrote. \u201cSelling and facilitating advanced AI and cloud services to a government engaged in systematic ethnic cleansing is not \u2018business as usual.\u2019 It is complicity.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe musician ended his letter by pledging to donate the fee he originally received for his Windows 95 composition to support for victims of attacks in Gaza. \u201cIf a sound can signal a real change,\u201d he concluded, \u201clet it be this one.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBillboard<\/em> has reached out to Microsoft for comment about Eno\u2019s open letter.<\/p>\n \n\tThe composer has been an important figure in Microsoft\u2019s history for 30 years now, with his ethereal seconds-long theme soundtracking the startup process of countless people\u2019s very first home computers all over the world. In 2025, the U.S. Library of Congress added the jingle <\/a>to its National Recording Registry<\/a>, which documents and preserves nationally significant recordings.<\/p>\n \n\tSee Eno\u2019s full statement below.<\/p>\n