The other guy had made a careless joke in 2014, which did not imply support for the Nazis but mocked the idea that free healthcare is ipso facto something beneficial. Indeed, this is something that people on the left understand very well, but you can hurt people severly by pretending to take it literally and labelling somebody a Nazi.
My prediction is that the first employee will soon be reinstated and get an official apology from Microsoft, the other guy will not.
This is a problem because it rewards the worst and most immoral behavior of the most unhinged activists from the left and increases political polarization, as conservatives, and also many white men in general, feel they are being treated very unfairly and realize that far-left activist employees are basically being allowed to frivolously hurt them with impunity and full company backing, even if their activism hurts the other employees ability to do their work and thus the company.
Young men in IT tend to have grown up with meme culture and the irreverent culture of online video games. They do not understand that people on the left really are in charge, and really want to hurt them and that their bloodlust can never be satisfied. Anybody who doesn't agree with the left is a literal Nazi in their minds and it is thus perfectly justified to use any means whatsoever to destroy them to prevent Nazis from gaining power, including lethal violence. Certainly any criticism is thus the equivalent of supporting germany in 1942. The left thinks their ideological enemies are war criminals who should be executed without trial, or even better be defamed into unemployability and homelessness and hopefully commit suicide, the ultimate triumph for the far-left mob.
Because of their obliviousness, thanks to the cultural isolation of gaming and culture and far-left academia, some naïve young software developers make stupid mistakes like believing the company will take context into consideration or that they will ever get a fair hearing. Indeed this is what happened with James Damore, who seems to be one of the most hated people on this board.
Now a massive boycott is being organized to support the histrionic leftist, and I am fully convinced it will succeed.
The most surprising thing is that the head of HR thought it was a wise move career-wise to defend the target du jour of the first guy. It speaks volumes to what "patterns of behavior" really means. There is an interesting quote from the first guy, "apparently the circle sounds akin to nazi apologists and ‘all lives matter’ type of bs."