Paddy Cosgrave has resigned as CEO of Web Summit after comments he made in the wake of attacks on Israel earlier this month led to high-profile attendees including Alphabet Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc. quitting the event Exhibition.
Web Summit will name a new CEO as soon as possible and the show, which opens in Lisbon on November 13, will go ahead as planned, organizers said in an emailed statement on Saturday.
“Unfortunately, my personal comments have distracted from this event, our team, our sponsors, our startups and participants,” Cosgrave said in the statement. “For I again sincerely apologize for any harm I caused.”
Cosgrave took aim at Israel’s response to Hamas in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter Inc., saying “war crimes are war crimes even when committed by allies.” The comments sparked backlash from some venture capitalists and technology founders.
Days later, Cosgrave posted an apology on the Web Summit blog, saying he was “sorry” for causing “deep hurt” and the time and content of his speech. But it wasn’t enough to stop a campaign calling on speakers and sponsors to withdraw from the show, which last year had more than 70,000 visitors.
In addition to Alphabet’s Google and Meta, Amazon.com, Intel, Siemens, Stripe and numerous venture capitalists said they had canceled plans to participate in the show. According to Israeli news website Calcalist, a group of Israeli investors issued a joint statement calling for a boycott of the event.
Still, the resignation came as a surprise after Cosgrave said last week he would stay on and assured staff the show had enough money in the bank to last at least two years, according to a person familiar with the situation. Report Earlier on Saturday, Irish newspaper The Business Post cited unnamed employees at Internet Summit.
Cosgrave founded Web Summit in Dublin in 2009 with David Kelly and Daire Hickey before moving the main conference to Portugal in 2016. While the show has become Europe’s largest tech gathering and attracts tech companies and celebrities from around the world, Cosgrave has always had its share of controversy.
Last year, the summit was forced to Withdraw invitation The spokesperson from the Gray Zone spoke out after the site faced backlash for its anti-Ukrainian government rhetoric. Grayzone has published posts since the start of the Russian invasion accusing senior officials in the Ukrainian government and military of Nazi sympathies.
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