Cosgrave quits Web Summit leadership

The co-founder of Web Summit, Paddy Cosgrave, has quit his leadership of Web Summit as more and more Israeli companies (and major tech giants) pull out of the annual Lisbon event in November following comments made by him on the situation in Gaza.

The Web Summit CEO stepped down on Saturday after several Big Tech companies withdrew from the Lisbon-based technology conference over his comments on the Israel-Hamas war.
“Unfortunately, my personal comments have become a distraction from the event, and our team, our sponsors, our start-ups and the people who attend”, Cosgrave said in a statement to CNN. “I sincerely apologise again for any hurt I have caused”.
His resignation comes a little more than a week after comments posted on ‘X’, formerly Twitter, condemning Israel’s war on Gaza by writing: “War crimes are war crimes even when committed by allies, and should be called out for what they are”.
Cosgrave also denounced the October 7 attacks by Hamas militants that killed an estimated 1,400 people in Israel, according to authorities.
The comments had been met with swift backlash from tech giants including Google parent company Alphabet, Meta, Siemens and Amazon, all of which pulled out of the conference. This year’s conference is scheduled for November 13-16 in Lisbon.