Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune demyelinating disease in the central nervous system (CNS), and the currently approved disease-modifying therapy drugs (MTD) can inhibit the peripheral immune attack in MS, but still fail to prevent the disease process in patients with progressive MS or severe neurodegeneration. Microglia, as inherent immune cells in CNS, play a role in immune defense, regulate the proliferation and development of neurons and glial cells, and remove apoptotic cells, exerting the neural protective effect. In recent years, many existing clinical drugs for MS have been found to have regulatory effects on microglia, and various preclinical studies have confirmed that therapeutic strategies targeting microglia show great potential in the treatment of MS. In this paper, the role of microglia in the pathogenesis of MS and its potential therapeutic targets are reviewed.