Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, SF Mayor Scrap Event After National Guard Comment

Days after his comments advocating for President Donald Trump to send the National Guard into San Francisco ballooned into a controversy, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff was slated to appear at a press event on Monday afternoon with Mayor Daniel Lurie. Then it was cancelled.

The abrupt change came after Benioff, a fourth-generation San Franciscan once viewed as relatively liberal, came under fire over the weekend for praising Trump in an interview with The New York Times and lambasting the city’s approach to combating crime, saying the city should “refund” the police force—even though the police budget has grown and violent crime rates are down.

“San Francisco’s public safety challenges are real and complex, and we need to continue exploring every possible pathway to create a safer city for everyone,” Benioff, who once hosted a dinner for then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, said in a post on the social media platform X following his interview with the Times.

Salesforce media representatives said the cancellation was due to an expected rainstorm. They did not say why the event — announcing millions of dollars in donations to UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital and local public schools — was not simply moved indoors.

Benioff has since said that his comments were intended to suggest that San Francisco needs the same level of policing that takes place during Salesforce’s flagship conference, Dreamforce, happening this week in downtown San Francisco. Homeless advocates have also criticized the way the city increases encampment sweeps and policing during major public events, rather than putting more resources toward seeking long-term solutions.

But Benioff’s comments shocked some city officials and were immediately seized on by other tech giants close to Trump, like Elon Musk, who echoed Benioff’s call to bring the National Guard to San Francisco.

“It’s the only solution at this point,” Musk posted Sunday on X. “Nothing else has or will work.”

On Sunday, the Salesforce CEO elaborated on his remarks on X.

“When I was recently asked about federal resources, my point was this: each year, to make Dreamforce as safe as possible for 50,000 attendees, we add 200 additional law-enforcement professionals — coordinated across city, state, and other partners,” he said in the lengthy post. “It’s proof that collaboration works and a reminder that the city needs more resources to keep San Franciscans safe year-round.”

Mayor Daniel Lurie, a moderate Democrat who has refrained from speaking out against Trump or his allies in tech, declined to respond to Benioff’s National Guard comments but defended the city’s law enforcement capabilities, saying crime is down 30% citywide compared to last year.

“We are going to keep people safe during Salesforce and Dreamforce this week, and we will keep people safe 365 days a year,” Lurie said when asked by reporters about Benioff’s comments at the city’s Italian Heritage Festival on Sunday. “We have work to do, there is no doubt about that. We need more SFPD.

“For the first time in seven years, we have an increase in SFPD officers, and for the first time in 10 years, we have an increase in Sheriff’s officers,” Lurie said. “The city is on the rise. San Francisco is coming back, and I trust my local law enforcement.”

But other local officials blasted Benioff for adding fuel to the president’s decision to send the military to largely Democratic cities, including Portland, Chicago and Los Angeles.

“This is a slap in the face to San Francisco. It’s insulting to our cops, and it’s honestly galling to those of us who’ve been fighting hard over the last few years to fully staff our SFPD,” Supervisor Matt Dorsey said in a post on X. “Marc Benioff, I pleaded for your support last year for the Prop F Charter Amendment I wrote, which would have swelled our police staffing ranks by hundreds of officers.”

The city has struggled over the last decade to recruit and retain police officers, even with increased financial incentives.

In 2023, Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered the California Highway Patrol and National Guard to assist San Francisco law enforcement with fentanyl trafficking in the city. But legal experts have said Trump’s decision to deploy troops in cities, against the will of their local and state leadership, violates federal law.

In contrast to many other tech executives, the Salesforce CEO was outspokenly supportive of a 2018 ballot measure, Prop C, which taxed the city’s wealthiest technology companies to fund homelessness services.

But like Musk and other tech titans, Benioff’s politics in recent years have shifted to the right.

In 2024, as the city was debating a new policy to ban pretextual traffic stops, which data show disproportionately affect Black drivers, Benioff said San Francisco should continue the controversial practice and increase police funding.

“Our police need to be empowered now — not this new terrible decision to end pretext stops,” he posted on X.

It’s unclear exactly what’s prompted Benioff’s pivot toward Trump, but Salesforce does business with the federal government and tech moguls from OpenAI’s Sam Altman to Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg have spoken favorably of the president in what many analysts say is an attempt to preserve their own business interests in the face of a commander-in-chief who has sought to punish his enemies.

Benioff’s latest comments signal to Keally McBride, a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco, that Benioff, who has largely relocated in recent years to Hawaii, “is probably not in touch with what life in San Francisco really is like these days. And he’s not thinking very clearly about the human costs that are associated with bringing in the National Guard to police.”

His remarks also pose a challenge for Lurie, who, while steering clear of criticizing Trump, has also sought to foster relationships with tech leaders.

“Benioff coming out and saying, ‘I think the National Guard should come in,’ makes it clear that there are political costs for San Franciscans, but also for Lurie in associating himself with these people,” McBride said. “Lurie’s trying to be like, ‘We’re the good rich people,’ and this is not going to help.”

The mayor, a Levi Strauss heir, is walking a tightrope in trying to court business interest in the city, at a time when the city has had to cut millions of dollars from its annual budget and is increasingly looking to private philanthropy to fill in the gaps. Angering Benioff, who has poured millions of dollars into various San Francisco causes, could have serious repercussions. The Salesforce CEO has already threatened in the past to move Dreamforce to another city, like Las Vegas.

“No one is doing more philanthropy in San Francisco this year than I am,” Benioff said in an interview with the San Francisco Standard. “We are the largest philanthropist in San Francisco by the company and individually. Nobody has given more than my family. Nobody has given more than my company.”

At the start of Lurie’s term this year, McBride said she hoped Lurie’s keep-quiet approach, “would mean that San Francisco would dodge the ire of Donald Trump, and that his affiliation with the tech industry leaders would help in that regard,” she said.

Lurie has remained silent as Trump has sent the National Guard to crack down on protests against increased immigration raids and arrests, and as the president said he will continue to send troops to Democratic strongholds like San Francisco to fight a “war from within.”

Now, that approach is being tested.

“Benioff’s statements, if anything, serve as encouragement to the Trump Administration. It could be decisive,” McBride said. “But, it’s really hard to know what the White House will do. I’m way beyond trying to predict what’s going to happen next week.”