AI cloud software platform Vercel is hemorrhaging users after CEO Guillermo Rauch took a selfie with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a private AI tech meeting in New York.
Netanyahu attended the event with US tech investors to discuss how AI could bolster Israel’s economy. Rauch shared a picture of himself with the PM and said the two discussed AI, education, and its ability to help developers.
However, Rauch has faced fierce criticism over his apparent support for Netanyahu amidst what the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory has described as Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Among the most well-known critics was pseudonymous crypto founder and Vercel user Loopify, who has raised over $2 million in support of Gaza.
Loopify claimed his businesses would “move away” from Vercel, adding that Rauch “purposefully going out of his way to harm his company like this is so dumb.”
Many online firms chose to drop Vercel from their infrastructure.Read more: US could offer Palestinians digital tokens to leave Gaza, report
Vercel also appears to have lost at least one of its software engineers after X user @wesamo__ claimed he handed in his resignation before guiding users to donate to Gaza.
Dozens of users across X also announced that they would be shifting from Vercel’s software to other cloud firms, including Replit, Netlify, Hetzner, and Cloudflare.
Some noted how Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity, while others implied Israel’s genocide will now be supported by Vercel’s web development firm Next.js.
While the reception was mostly negative, Coinbase’s protocol specialist Viktor Bunin defended Rauch. Bunin claimed that Israel’s offensive isn’t a genocide, and that Rauch did the right thing because his post goes against “the current thing.”
Read more: Scoop: Crypto Capital Corp’s Ravid Yosef is flouting extradition in Israel
Vercel discusses AI as Israel’s ‘genocidal’ war continues
Netanyahu is the driving force behind Israel’s continued obliteration of Gaza as his government pursues the eradication of Hamas and the recovery of hostages taken on October 7, 2023.
Israel’s foreign ministry claims Hamas killed around 1,200 people on that day, while according to Gaza’s health ministry, Israel has killed roughly 66,000 since its offensive began.
The sheer loss of life, tactics leading to a humanitarian crisis and other atrocities, has resulted in Israel’s actions being classified as genocidal by the United Nations and the International Association of Genocide Scholars.
Leaked post-war plans for Gaza outlined a digital token system that would encourage Palestinians to leave the country and come back a decade later.
Indeed, the “GREAT Trust Proposal” would create AI mega projects and carve up Gaza into a tech investor sandbox with entire sectors dedicated to Elon Musk.
If Israel does eventually take over Gaza completely, there’s a chance Vercel could be considered by Israel, after yesterday’s meeting, as a tool for digital infrastructure that would help supplement the re-imagining of Gaza into a “Trumpian Riviera.”
Protos has reached out to Vercel for comment and will update this story if we hear back.
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Source: https://protos.com/vercel-faces-user-exodus-after-ceo-picture-with-benjamin-netanyahu/
