Comedians Kumail Nanjiani and Ilana Glazer pulled out of performing at Salesforce's annual technology conference this week after the company's CEO Marc Benioff made controversial remarks that showed his support for President Trump.
Last week Benioff said New York Times he believed Trump should deploy the National Guard to reduce crime in San Francisco, a statement that drew backlash from Silicon Valley philanthropists and Democrats.
On Friday, Benioff completely retracted his remarks and apologized.
“I do not believe the National Guard is necessary to provide security in San Francisco,” he wrote on his Facebook page. social network site X. “My previous comment was out of an abundance of caution regarding this event and I sincerely apologize for the concern it has caused.”
Salesforce, a software company based in San Francisco, provides a platform that businesses use to manage customer data and track sales. The company confirmed that the comedians pulled out, but the artists have not publicly said what prompted the last-minute cancellation. This was reported by a source close to the company. Chronicles of San Francisco that Nanjiani fell ill, which led to Glazer canceling his scheduled first match as well.
Nanjiani and Glaser have not publicly addressed Benioff's remarks about the National Guard.
However, both comedians have criticized Trump and his anti-immigrant rhetoric in the past. Earlier this year, Glaser spoke at the No Kings protest, which organizers said was meant to be a fight against the authoritarian policies pursued by Trump and his administration. This week she promoted the next series of demonstrations, due to take place on October 18, saying it was not a partisan issue on Instagram.
San Francisco Standard The cancellation was previously reported.
Benioff faced growing backlash after he made comments about Trump and the National Guard. The controversy has overshadowed Dreamforce, a conference in San Francisco that featured prominent speakers including tech CEOs, government officials and artists.
Nanjiani played Dinesh in the HBO series Silicon Valley and co-wrote and starred in the Oscar-nominated 2017 film The Big Sick. Glaser co-wrote and starred in the Comedy Central series “Brother Town” and the 2024 comedy film “Babes.”
In their absence, comedian David Spade performed at Dreamforce on Thursday afternoon, closing the conference.
Ahead of the event, which ended Thursday, Benioff appeared to retract his comments.
On social network X, he said he was trying to make the conference as safe as possible.
“Keeping San Francisco safe is first and foremost the responsibility of our city and state leaders,” he wrote on the page X. Benioff also said he would donate an additional $1 million to fund larger hiring bonuses for new police officers.
Benioff, who has previously said he is an independent and was once a Republican, has aligned himself with Democrats and supported liberal ideas such as a business tax for homeless services. But he also criticized public safety in San Francisco and threatened to move Dreamforce from San Francisco to Las Vegas.
The conference attracts about 50,000 people to the city, generates $130 million in revenue for San Francisco and creates 35,000 local jobs, according to Salesforce. The company announced earlier this week he invested $15 billion in San Francisco more than five years for the development of artificial intelligence.
Prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist and Democratic Party donor Ron Conway resigned from the Salesforce Foundation board of directors on Thursday. In an email first viewed by a user New York TimesConway told Benioff that he “now barely recognizes the man he admired for so long.”
“Your obsession and constant annual threats to move Dreamforce to Las Vegas are ironic since it is a fact that Las Vegas has a higher violent crime rate than San Francisco,” Conway wrote in an email. “San Francisco doesn't need a federal invasion because you don't like paying for extra Dreamforce security.”
Conway, founder and managing partner of SV Angel, is widely known as the “godfather of Silicon Valley” due to his early investments in large technology companies such as Google, Facebook and PayPal. SV Angel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A Salesforce spokesperson said in a statement that they are “deeply grateful to Ron Conway and his incredible contributions to the Salesforce Foundation board of directors for more than a decade.”
On Friday, entrepreneur and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs published an essay in the magazine Wall Street Journal citing some of Benioff's earlier remarks and arguing that no one has given San Francisco more. The widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs also founded and chairs the charity Emerson Collective.
“The message under this comment was unmistakable: in his In the eyes, generosity is an auction, and politics is a prize awarded to the highest bidder,” she wrote. “But giving something that implies control is not generous at all.”
