WASHINGTON (AFP) ― Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella’s gaffe over women, pay raises and karma comes as the US tech industry is facing up to questions over diversity and gender equality.

Nadella, named CEO at the tech giant in April, swiftly backtracked from his comments in which he suggested working women should trust karma for pay raises.

“I answered that question completely wrong,” Nadella said in a memo to staff, aiming to quell a firestorm over his comments at a conference on Thursday.

Yet Nadella touched a nerve at a time when Silicon Valley faces renewed scrutiny over the gender pay gap, and a lack of diversity in both the workforce and top management.

“The tech sector is still a non-traditional occupation for women,” said Ariane Hegewisch, study director at the Washington-based Institute for Women’s Policy Research, which monitors issues on women and employment.

“There’s not a lot of evidence that karma has been friendly to women in this area.”

Research earlier this year by Joint Venture Silicon Valley, a California think tank, found that men in the region who hold graduate or professional degrees earn 73 percent more than women with the same educational qualifications. The gap was 40 percent for those with a bachelor’s degree.

An “Equal Pay Project” campaign launched this week calculated that American women over the course of their careers are paid $435,000 less than male counterparts, adding up to a staggering $29 trillion in aggregate.

In recent weeks, major tech firms have been looking at the issue with “diversity reports” that examine the composition of the workforce.