A new report from an ex-employee at Microsoft has claimed that the company was rife with sexual assault and harassment and that this "toxic culture" flowed from the top after co-founder, former chairman and CEO Bill Gates "picked out women to fulfill himself."
This report was made back in 2015 by Katherine Moussouris, who worked as a computer researcher at Microsoft from 2007 to 2014 and filed a lawsuit against Microsoft. It came to light as claims of Gates using his position as the head of Microsoft to pursue female employees emerged. Many women are now speaking out about how they were "abused and degraded" by men who assaulted and harassed their female co-workers by "groping" and "spanking" them.
"It was a culture of testing women poorly with impunity and I think these revelations have shown that to the world," said Moussouris. "Not only did he choose his wife from his employees, he chose to target several other women to fulfill himself with no consequences." (Related: Gates and Epstein traded advice on Bill's 'toxic' marriage, Jeff's pedo image rehab during secretive "men's club" gatherings.)
"It felt like this culture flowed from the top and it was a culture of paying lip service to diversity and inclusion and not really supporting women in sexual assault claims or their career progression."
Microsoft's culture helped cover up hundreds of sexual harassment and gender discrimination complaints
According to the lawsuit initiated by Moussouris and several other women, there were 238 complaints filed with Microsoft's human resources department between 2010 and 2016, all from women. Of these complaints, 108 were regarding sexual harassment in the workplace and 118 about gender discrimination. Only one of the gender discrimination complaints was ever proven.
The complaints range from inappropriate touching to sexual assault. There were even three complaints filed by women who alleged that they were raped by their co-workers.
Employee complaint logs in the lawsuit claim that the co-workers the women were accusing got away with their behavior because Microsoft had a culture that not only tolerated the "abuse and toxic behavior, especially towards females," but actually accepted it.
In one of the complaints, one man was accused of groping four different women in a single night at a work function. The subsequent internal investigation into the incident allegedly did not find any breaches in any anti-harassment regulations. His actions were written off as "poor interpersonal awareness."
One other incident involved one woman who claimed that a male colleague repeatedly touched her inappropriately during multiple work events in 2012. She claimed he also made "unprovoked comments" regarding the size of her boyfriend's genitals.
The accused, on the other hand, told the internal investigation team at Microsoft that she was "very flirty" and that she had "crossed the line first." A second woman reported this man for making lewd comments about her body.
The most serious of the complaints involved three allegations of rape and sexual assault. One male intern was accused by a female co-worker of raping her. He was reportedly offered a full-time job at Microsoft despite these allegations. The woman threatened to file a restraining order against the rapist, but was told that she would be removed from the team if she did so.
One other woman claimed that one of the managers "grabbed her buttocks in an unwelcome manner in front of the group."
Another woman claimed she received multiple unwanted and suggestive messages from a co-worker. When she told him to stop, he replied: "Don't make me come over there and spank you." After telling him she does not want that, he answered: "Good because then you will enjoy it and you will start misbehaving all the time. I can help but you have to do your part."
The lawsuit filed by Moussouris and other female former employees at Microsoft was dismissed in Nov. 2020 after the presiding judge ruled that the complaints were not a class action matter. Their appeal had also been rejected.
Moussouris alleged that Microsoft attempted to settle, but she refused as the settlement would force her to sign a gag order. Moussouris had since dropped the lawsuit.
Gates was allegedly inappropriate towards his employees
The internal complaints started coming out after reports that Gates was forced to quit by the Microsoft board after he had an affair with a female staffer and propositioned female employees while he was still married.
Board members apparently carried out an internal investigation into Gates' romantic relationship with one Microsoft engineer in late 2019 after the woman claimed in a letter she had been engaged in a relationship with the billionaire for several years at that point. The board decided that this relationship was "inappropriate."
The reports also claimed that Gates "pursued" several women in his office right after he got married to his now-estranged wife Melinda in 1994. The reports detailed two alleged instances when Gates asked women who worked for Microsoft and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on dates with him.
The members of the board decided it would not be best for the company's image for Gates to remain as a director in the company he founded. But Gates apparently stepped down before the investigation was completed and before the members of the board could make their decision official.
His spokeswoman said that Gates' decision to leave the board "was in no way related" to his alleged affair or the accusations of inappropriate activity. "In fact, he had expressed an interest in spending more time on his philanthropy starting several years earlier," the spokeswoman said.
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