Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella’s son passed away on Monday informed its executive staff in an email. He was 26.

Son of Satya and Anu Nadella, Zain Nadella was born with cerebral palsy.

The American technology company has asked its executives to hold the Nadella family in their thoughts and prayers and offer them the space to grieve privately.

Since taking over as CEO of Microsoft in 2014, 54-year-old Satya Nadella has steered the company towards designing products to better serve users with disabilities and cited lessons he learned raising and supporting his son Zain.

In 2021, the Children’s Hospital where Zain received much of his treatment joined the Nadellas to establish the Zain Nadella Endowed Chair in Pediatric Neurosciences as part of Seattle Children’s Center for Integrative Brain Research.

Jeff Sperring, CEO of Children’s Hospital, wrote in a message to his board, “Zain will be remembered for his eclectic taste in music, his bright sunny smile and the immense joy he brought to his family and all those who loved him."

Zain was born in 1996 when Satya was 29 and his wife Anu, an architect by profession was 25. Anu was pregnant and the couple were elated as they were ready to start their new lives in Seattle, a long way from India.

Satya wrote, “In the apartment we were renting next to the Microsoft campus, we spent months busily preparing for his arrival — decorating a nursery, putting plans in place for Anu to return to her career, envisioning how our weekends and holidays would change… We were ready to add a new joy to our life.”

But things didn’t go as planned, he said.

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