Salesforce boss Marc Benioff apologised Friday for suggesting that US President Donald Trump should send National Guard troops to San Francisco.
The apology followed days of backlash against Mr Benioff for a comment he made ahead of his company’s annual Dreamforce conference in the city.
“Having listened closely to my fellow San Franciscans… I do not believe the National Guard is needed to address safety in San Francisco,” he said.
The saga comes amid the Trump administration’s military deployments to US cities – many of which are led by Democrats. Trump on Friday asked the Supreme Court to overrule lower courts that blocked a National Guard deployment in Chicago.
The mood at the usually jubilant Dreamforce convention was dampened by cancelled appearances by San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, as well as comedians Kumail Nanjiani and Ilana Glazer.
Mr Benioff was dealt public rebukes from several Democratic politicians, including California Governor Gavin Newsom, who once served as mayor of San Francisco and appeared on stage with Mr Benioff at last year’s convention.
On Thursday, venture capitalist Ron Conway resigned from the board of the Salesforce Foundation, telling the New York Times that their values “were no longer aligned”.
“I now barely recognize the person I have so long admired,” Conway told the newspaper.
Although Mr Benioff walked back his comments earlier in the week, the apology posted on social media on Friday appeared aimed at putting the controversy to rest.
“I remain deeply grateful to Mayor Lurie, SFPD, and all our partners, and am fully committed to a safer, stronger San Francisco,” Mr Benioff said in his X post.
But he noted that his endorsement of a crackdown “came from an abundance of caution” around Dreamforce security, adding “I sincerely apologize for the concern it caused”.
Sylvia Paull, a veteran Silicon Valley publicist, called Benioff “typical” of many tech CEOs who are not “really political animals” and tend to be transactional.
“It was going to hurt his sales.”
And that’s not all.
“He’s afraid he’s going to lose his legacy,” she said of his apology.
Mr Benioff, who also owns Time Magazine, has been a prolific donor to civic causes in San Francisco over the years.
His name graces one of the most prominent hospitals in the San Francisco Bay Area.
In 2018, he funded support for a San Francisco ballot measure aimed at raising corporate taxes to fund homeless services. It passed, despite controversy.
And while he once held a fundraiser for Democratic Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign against Mr Trump, Mr Benioff appeared with the sitting president during his state visit to London last month.
Mr Trump said Wednesday that San Francisco was one of the next targets on his list of places where he plans to deploy the National Guard, calling the city “a mess.”
On Friday, in an emergency appeal, the president urged the Supreme Court to permit him to deploy National Guard troops in Chicago. Lower courts have blocked the deployment there thus far, with an appeals court saying such a move would “likely to lead to civil unrest” and “only add fuel to the fire”.
The court ruled that it had “seen no credible evidence that there has been rebellion in the state of Illinois”.
Officials in Illinois and Chicago had sued the Trump administration to block the deployment, arguing it was a “grave intrusion on Illinois’ sovereignty”.
The administration has recently deployed the National Guard to Portland, Oregon in a move that also prompted lawsuits and protests. It previously sent troops to Los Angeles, Washington and parts of Tennessee.
The New York Times also reported this week that Salesforce pitched its services to the Trump administration as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ramps up the hiring of new officers amid a crackdown on immigration.
The BBC has reached out to Salesforce for comment.
Trump administration official David Sacks, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, addressed Mr Benioff in a post on X this week, writing “if the Democrats don’t want you, we would be happy for you to join our team.”
