Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, in a post on X, apologized for suggesting that President Donald Trump should call the National Guard into San Francisco.
“Having listened closely to my fellow San Franciscans and our local officials, and after the largest and safest Dreamforce in our history, I do not believe the National Guard is needed to address safety in San Francisco,” Benioff wrote.
“My earlier comment came from an abundance of caution around the event, and I sincerely apologize for the concern it caused,” he added. “It’s my firm belief that our city makes the most progress when we all work together in a spirit of partnership. I remain deeply grateful to Mayor Lurie, SFPD, and all our partners, and am fully committed to a safer, stronger San Francisco.”
Benioff has said this year’s Dreamforce, the company’s annual conference, was the largest in its history, with more than 50,000 attendees.
Throughout the conference, Benioff made repeated references to safety, and at one point said the company hired hundreds of its own security personnel.
His initial comments urging the president to call the National Guard into the city were made during an interview with The New York Times that was published on October 10.
When reached by Business Insider, Salesforce declined to comment further than Benioff’s remarks. Salesforce has yet to respond to whether there’s been a major safety-related incident at a Dreamforce conference.
Prominent venture capitalist Ron Conway resigned from the board of the Salesforce Foundation, the software company’s philanthropic arm, on Thursday. The New York Times reported that Conway sent Benioff an email saying their “values were no longer aligned.”
“It saddens me immensely to say that with your recent comments, and failure to understand their impact, I now barely recognize the person I have so long admired,” The Times reported Conway, a top Democratic donor, wrote to Benioff.
Salesforce confirmed Conway’s departure in a statement.
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“We have deep gratitude for Ron Conway and his incredible contributions to the Salesforce Foundation Board for over a decade,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
Comedians Kumail Nanjiani and Ilana Glazer also canceled performances at Dreamforce, but did not specify the reason.
On October 12, a group of current and former Salesforce employees, as well as other tech workers and San Francisco residents, published an open letter to Benioff, criticizing his original comments and demanding that he retract his endorsement of sending National Guard troops into the city.
“If you choose not to act, we will hold you accountable,” the letter reads. “We’ll use every tool available to us — as employees, as alumni, as community members, as partners, as residents of this city — to ensure the public understands the gap between Salesforce’s stated values and your actions. We’ll make sure people know who invited troops to San Francisco, and who refused to make it right.”
After his public apology, the group behind the open letter published an update saying they were “monitoring ongoing news” surrounding his apology, as well as an October 16 article by The New York Times, which reported that Salesforce had offered to aid Trump’s immigration enforcement officers with AI services.
The group behind the letter to Benioff wrote that they were “still collecting signatures because we believe the threat is still real and there’s more work to do.”
In 2023, Benioff threatened to move Dreamforce outside San Francisco if that year’s event was affected by what he called “the current situation with homelessness and drug use.”
Benioff later that year announced Dreamforce would return in 2024 due to “new standards with outstanding safety measures, cleanliness, and hospitality” in partnership with the city.
This year’s Dreamforce centered heavily on AI, specifically on agentic AI and featured appearances by Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Athropic CEO Dario Amodei, and others in the tech, business, and entertainment space.
