[UPDATE 9:32 p.m. ET: Nadella did eventually apologize in an email to Microsoft employees Thursday night. "I answered that question completely wrong," he wrote. "I believe men and women should get equal pay for equal work. And when it comes to career advice on getting a raise when you think it’s deserved, Maria’s advice was the right advice. If you think you deserve a raise, you should just ask."]

Satya Nadella came under fire Thursday for comments at a conference celebrating women in computing, in which the new Microsoft CEO suggested that women who don't ask for raises have "good karma" and that not asking for equal pay with men is a "superpower."

"It's not really about asking for the raise," Nadella told the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference, held in Phoenix, "but knowing and having faith that the system will actually give you the right raises as you go along."

He added that "women who don't ask for raises" have a "superpower ... because that's good karma, that'll come back ... that's the kind of person that I want to trust."

The question he was responding to: "What do you advise women who are interested in advancing their careers, but not comfortable ... with asking for a raise?" Multiple studies have suggested that women in the workplace earn roughly three quarters of the salary, on average, compared to male counterparts doing the same job.

The moderator, Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College and member of Microsoft's board of directors, said she disagreed with Nadella's answer, and went on to relate a story about when she was hired as Dean of Engineering at Princeton, and found out she was making $50,000 a year less than she should have been.

"Do your homework," Klawe advised women in the audience, in stark contrast to Nadella's advice to trust in the system. "Don't be stupid like I was."

After several members of the audience complained about his comments on Twitter, Nadella tweeted that he had been "inarticulate" — but the tweet appeared to raise as many questions as it answered.

Was inarticulate re how women should ask for raise. Our industry must close gender pay gap so a raise is not needed because of a bias #GHC14 — Satya Nadella (@satyanadella) October 9, 2014

The response on Twitter was almost universally negative. Here's a sample:

@satyanadella As a shareholder, I hope you'll do the right thing and take steps to close the gaps at MS first. Deeds speak louder than words — B. Wytched (@BLynchBooks) October 9, 2014

@satyanadella correct approach to the gender pay gap is to assess the gap that exists within MS, then fix it. Then talk about trust. — Yvan Boily (@ygjb) October 9, 2014

@satyanadella so you've never asked for a raise or a promotion? Amazing. — Kenneth (@kpk) October 9, 2014

.@satyanadella so you're just saying "trust the system that created the structural inequity" in a slightly different way? — Mark McBride (@mccv) October 9, 2014

Here's the video of the Nadella interview. It begins at 49 minutes, and the question about pay starts at 1 hour 34 minutes. Below that is a transcript of Nadella's full answer — emphasis ours.

You know, the thing that perhaps most influenced me in terms of how do you look at the journey or a career. There was this guy, his name is Mike Naples, he was the president of Microsoft when I joined and he had this saying that all HR systems are long-term efficient, short-term inefficient. And I thought that this phrase captured it. It's not really about asking for the raise but knowing and having faith that the system will actually give you the right raises as you go along. And that I think might be one of the additional superpowers that quite frankly women who don't ask for raises have. Because that's good karma, that'll come back. Because somebody's going to know that's the kind of person that I want to trust; that's the kind of person that I want to really give more responsibility to; and in the long term, efficiency things catch up. And I wonder — and I'm not saying that's the only approach — I wonder if taking the long term helps solve for what might be perceived as this uncomfortable thing as am I getting paid right, am I getting rewarded right. Because the reality is your best work is not followed with your best rewards. Your best work then has impact, people recognize it and then you get the rewards. So I think you have to think that through I think.

Christina Warren contributed to this report.

h/t to ReadWrite, which first reported Nadella's remarks.