Salesforce CEO Marc BenioffIn a post on X, he apologized for suggesting that President Donald Trump call the National Guard to San Francisco.
“After listening carefully to my fellow San Franciscans and our local officials, and after the largest and most secure Dreamforce in our history, I do not believe the National Guard is necessary to keep San Francisco safe,” Benioff wrote.
“My previous comment was out of an abundance of caution regarding this event and I sincerely apologize for the concern it has caused,” he added. “I firmly believe 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 of our partners, and am fully committed to a safer and stronger San Francisco.”
Benioff said Dreamforce this yearThe company's annual conference was the largest in its history, with more than 50,000 participants.
Throughout the conference, Benioff repeatedly mentioned security and at one point said the company hired hundreds of its own security officers.
His first comments calling on the president to call in the National Guard to the city came during an interview with The New York Times published on October 10.
In a conversation with Business Insider, Salesforce declined to comment beyond Benioff's remarks. Salesforce has not yet responded to questions about whether there was a serious security incident at the Dreamforce conference.
Prominent venture capitalist Ron Conway resigned from the board of directors of the Salesforce Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the software company, on Thursday. The New York Times reported that Conway sent Benioff an email saying their “values no longer aligned.”
“I am very sad to say that because of your recent comments and failure to understand their impact, I now barely recognize the man I admired for so long,” the Times reported, Conway, a major Democratic Party donor, as saying in a letter to Benioff.
Salesforce confirmed Conway's departure in a statement.
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“We express our deep gratitude to Ron Conway and his incredible contributions to the Salesforce Foundation Board of Directors for more than 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 open letter Benioff, criticizing his initial comments and demanding that he retract his approval of sending National Guard troops to the city.
“If you choose to fail to act, we will hold you accountable,” the letter states. “We will use every tool available to us—as employees, as alumni, as community members, as partners, as residents of this city—to ensure that the public understands the gap between Salesforce's stated values and your actions. We will make sure people know who invited troops to San Francisco and who refused to fix this.”
Following his public apology, the group behind the open letter posted an update saying they were “monitoring ongoing news” related to his apology, as well as an October 16 article published by New York Timeswhich reported that Salesforce offered to help Trump's immigration officials with artificial intelligence services.
The group that wrote the letter to Benioff wrote that they are “still collecting signatures because we believe the threat is still real and there is still work to be done.”
In 2023, Benioff threatened move Dreamforce outside San Francisco if that year's event was influenced by what he called “the current situation with homelessness and drug use.”
Later that year, Benioff announced that Dreamforce would return in 2024 with “new standards with outstanding safety measures, cleanliness and hospitality” in partnership with the city.
This year's Dreamforce focused heavily on artificial intelligence, especially agent-based artificial intelligence, and featured speakers from Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Athropic CEO Dario Amodei, and others from the tech, business, and entertainment sectors.
