Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has finally broken his silence about an employee who was taken hostage by Hamas on October 7, 2023 upon his release on Saturday.
Alexander ‘Sasha’ Troufanov, 29, was visiting his family at Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel, when he, his mother, grandmother and girlfriend were taken captive.
He had been working at Amazon Web Services as an electrical engineer, helping to develop the company’s Gravitron4 chip at the company Annapurna Labs in Tel Aviv at the time, according to the New York Post.
But the tech giant has stayed quiet about Troufanov’s captivity in the years that followed, with Jassy only releasing a vague statement following the Hamas attack.
‘The attacks against civilians in Israel are shocking and painful to watch,’ he said at the time, noting: ‘I have been in touch with our teammates there to make sure we do everything we can to help support their families and their safety.’
Jassy has since explained in an email to employees that Amazon ‘painfully’ could not comment on Troufanov’s abduction publicly ‘for fear that we would negatively impact their ability to be released or how they were treated in captivity,’ Fox Business reports.
He also revealed that the company had a team of experts working with Troufanov’s family ‘behind the scenes’ to help secure his release.
Finally on Saturday, Troufanov was released back into the care of his family, along with Israeli-Argentinian Yair Horn, 46, and Israeli-American Sagui Dekel-Chen, 36.
Alexander ‘Sasha’ Troufanov, 29, was employed Amazon Web Services as an electrical engineer when he was kidnapped on October 7, 2023
Amazon CEO Andy Jessy revealed on Saturday that the company had a team of experts working with Troufanov’s family ‘behind the scenes’ to help secure his release
‘I’m incredibly relieved to share the news that our AWS teammate Sasha Troufanov, who has been held hostage since the October 7, 2023 attacks in Israel, has been released from captivity,’ Jassy wrote in his email.
‘It’s been an extremely trying time for everybody who knows and cares for Sasha – a lot of angst and feelings of helplessness.
‘But it can’t approach what Sasha and his family have been through and we will continue to support them and do everything we can to help them heal.’
Jassy also said his ‘heart goes out to everyone impacted by the war’ and expressed his hope that there would be a ‘long-term peaceful path.’
He had previously been criticized for his refusal to speak publicly about Troufanov’s abduction, with some critics suggesting Amazon was trying to protect its business ties in Muslim and Arab countries by not releasing a statement.
The silence also seemed to anger some of Amazon’s Israeli and Jewish employees, who argued that the company’s silence contrasted with its vocal support for movements like Black Lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate, Israeli outlet YNet reports.
At an AWS conference in Las Vegas in November 2023, some of Troufanov’s colleagues even rented a truck displaying his photo in an attempt to pressure company leadership to acknowledge his situation.
‘The inspiration was to say that Sasha was one of them – we tried to make a connection between the people that are coming to the conference and to the humanitarian crisis about the hostages,’ Troufanov’s friend Neta Yesood Alon explained to the Post.
Troufanov was visiting his family at Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel, when he, his mother, grandmother and girlfriend were taken captive.
‘It’s not something far away, it’s a person who is just like them, who has been kidnapped.’
She said it was ‘disappointing’ to know that ‘such a big company can’t even say out loud that they have a worker that’s a hostage in Gaza.’
Another employee claimed Amazon’s leadership was so tight-lipped about the situation that ‘a lot of people [in the company] don’t even know’ Troufanov was taken by Hamas.
‘I think the silence is rubbish,’ the unidentified employee told the Post at the time, claiming the company’s ‘values went out the window’ when the war started.
‘They “strive to be the world’s best employer?” Really? You have an employee that was kidnapped … his entire family was kidnapped or murdered.
‘It’s bulls***.’
Making matters worse for the Amazon employees was the fact that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang publicly called for the release of employee Avinatan Or and led support efforts to bring him home.
Meanwhile, Troufanov became the subject of multiple propaganda videos Hamas released, in which he spoke under apparent duress about the poor conditions in captivity.
Troufanov became the subject of multiple propaganda videos Hamas released, in which he spoke under apparent duress about the poor conditions in captivity
Amazon received backlash for its failure to speak out about Troufanov’s abduction
Hope finally seemed to come when Troufanov’s mother, grandmother and girlfriend were released in November 2023.
But upon their freedom, they would learn that Troufanov’s father was killed during the October 7 attack.
In a statement on Saturday, the family said: ‘Seeing Sasha today strengthens us and gives us hope for the long rehabilitation process ahead.
‘This is a moment of immense relief for us, for his friends and for all who prayed for his return,’ they said, according to YNet.
‘We do not know if he is aware that his father was murdered on October 7,’ the family continued. ‘This revelation will change his homecoming from a day of immense joy to a day of deep mourning.’
The family then asked the media to respect his privacy during this trying time.
Troufanov’s release on Saturday was not guaranteed, after Hamas announced Monday it was scrapping its planned hostage release
An Al-Qassam Brigades soldier unwraps the hourglass with a message presented to Yair Horn
Troufanov’s release on Saturday was not guaranteed, after Hamas announced Monday it was scrapping the scheduled hostage release.
But US President Donald Trump threatened the terror group that he would cancel Israel‘s ceasefire on Gaza and ‘let all hell break loose’ if it did not follow through on the agreements it made under the deal.
Israeli officials also said in the aftermath that it would open ‘the gates of hell,’ prompting Hamas to release the names of the hostages it would free on Friday.
Still, Hamas sent a chilling message as they released Troufanov, Horn and Dekel-Chen Saturday by ‘gifting’ Horn an hourglass bearing a photograph of a kidnapped Israeli man still held in Gaza and the words ‘time is running out’.
An image of Matan Tsengauker, 25, who was kidnapped from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz, and one of his mother, were also featured beneath the hourglass, which was placed prominently by a Hamas terrorist onto a makeshift stage.
The hourglass is a symbol that has been repeatedly used in ‘proof of life’ videos released by Hamas of the hostages.
His mother, Einav, said last September that she believed her son was alive and being held alongside ten other living hostages.