Zain Nadella, the son of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, has died, the company confirmed Tuesday. He was 25.
“Very sadly Satya’s son Zain Nadella has passed away,” the company said in a statement emailed to USA TODAY. “The Nadellas are taking time to grieve privately as a family.”
Zain Nadella was born with cerebral palsy, was legally blind and had spastic quadriplegia, according to a 2021 story from Seattle Children’s Hospital, where he received care.
“He is the joy of our family, whose strength and warmth both inspire and motivate me to keep pushing the boundaries of what technology can do,” Satya Nadella wrote in a 2017 LinkedIn post.
Last year, Nadella’s family donated $15 million to the hospital “to advance precision medicine neurosciences and youth mental health care.”
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“As parents, our lives have been shaped by the needs of our children, and it is our hope that in honoring Zain’s journey, we can improve and innovate care for future generations in every community,” said Anu Nadella, Satya Nadella’s wife, in a statement when the donation was announced.
In 2017, Satya Nadella shared the story of Zain’s birth in a post on LinkedIn. When Zain was born on Aug. 13, 1996, he weighed 3 pounds and experienced in utero asphyxiation. Satya Nadella said Zain would require the use of a wheelchair along with constant care because of cerebral palsy, according to an excerpt from his book, “Hit Refresh.”
In the post, Satya Nadella said Zain’s life had inspired him to push Microsoft to make accessibility a key priority.
“Becoming a father of a son with special needs was the turning point in my life that has shaped who I am today,” Nadella wrote. “It has helped me better understand the journey of people with disabilities. It has shaped my personal passion for and philosophy of connecting new ideas to empathy for others. And it is why I am deeply committed to pushing the bounds on what love and compassion combined with human ingenuity and passion to have impact can accomplish with my colleagues at Microsoft.”
Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @brettmolina23.
