Apparently, Microsoft “does not believe” that it would “advance the interests of stakeholders” to tell investors more about this issue.

Microsoft thinks it’s being pretty open about its cooperation with the U.S. military, thank you very much. That’s according to the company’s recent proxy statement to investors ahead of its annual shareholders’ meeting in December. In it, the company’s board of directors opposed two shareholder proposals to commission reports on the company’s dealings with the U.S. Department of Defense.

The fourth shareholder proposal in the proxy statement, spotted by Eurogamer, would, if passed, order a report assessing whether Microsoft’s defence deals “contribute to violations of privacy, civil and human rights,” or otherwise conflict “with the policies and principles outlined in Microsoft’s CSR Report.”

The fifth proposal, meanwhile, would require a report that examines the company’s potential “reputational and financial risks to the company for being identified as a company involved in the development of weapons used by the military.”

However, Microsoft’s board says there is no need to worry. “Microsoft’s Senior Leadership Team deliberated and made a principled decision” that the company will not “withhold technology from institutions that we have elected in democracies to protect the freedoms we enjoy.” The statement said the company “has communicated that position with employees and in external communications like blog posts. As a result, we do not believe the requested third-party analyses would advance the interests of Microsoft, its shareholders, or other stakeholders.”

Microsoft’s HoloLens deal with the U.S. military alone is worth $22 billion, and the company finally began shipping the headsets to the military in mid-September last year. The deal went through despite protests from company employees.

But the proxy is not the end of the story: it is just a series of recommendations from the board to shareholders, who can still choose to vote in favour of the relevant proposals.

This seems unlikely in any case, given how lucrative these contracts are. Or how strongly the company’s board is against them. We will know more once the company holds its annual shareholders’ meeting on 13 December.

Source: Eurogamer, Microsoft GCS Web