Paddy Cosgrave, CEO and co-founder of the annual tech conference Web Summit, has resigned after his comments about the war between Israel and Hamas led to Alphabet, Meta and Amazon canceling their participation.
“Unfortunately, my personal comments became a distraction from the event and from our team, our sponsors, our startups and the people in attendance,” Cosgrave said in a statement Saturday.
Cosgrave has previously expressed his personal opposition to Israeli counter-attacks in Gaza on his social media accounts.
“To reiterate, war crimes are war crimes, even when committed by allies, and should be branded for what they are,” Cosgrave said on X. “I will not back down.”
His comments led to cancellations from Web Summit attendees such as Meta, Alphabet, Amazon and others. This year’s conference takes place from 13 to 16 November in Lisbon, Portugal.
The day after the post on X, Cosgrave apologized on the Web Summit blog. He wrote that the timing of his comments “caused deep pain”.
“What’s needed now is compassion, and I haven’t expressed that,” Cosgrave said.
Source: Deadline
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