Salesforce Workers Circulate Open Letter Urging CEO Marc Benioff to Denounce ICE

Workers at Salesforce are circulating an inner letter to chief government Marc Benioff calling on him to denounce latest actions by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, prohibit the usage of Salesforce software program by immigration brokers, and again federal laws that will considerably reform the company.

The letter particularly cites the “latest killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis” as catalysts, calling them the “devastating indictment of a system that has discarded human decency.” It’s unclear what number of signatories the letter has acquired thus far.

The letter, which has not been reported on beforehand, is being organized amid Salesforce’s annual management kickoff occasion this week in Las Vegas. Throughout an look on the occasion earlier at present, Benioff requested worldwide staff to stand to thank them for attending. He then joked that ICE brokers have been within the constructing monitoring them, in accordance to present and former Salesforce staff who spoke to WIRED.

Benioff’s remarks sparked instant backlash amongst staff. “Plenty of individuals are livid,” says one supply, who requested to stay nameless for concern of retaliation. One other supply tells WIRED that the interior pushback at present was considerably extra forceful than after Benioff made different controversial feedback final fall supporting President Trump’s name to deploy the Nationwide Guard to San Francisco to deal with crime.

Salesforce didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark from WIRED. Enterprise Insider and 404 Media beforehand reported on Benioff’s remarks and the response to them inside Salesforce.

“We’re deeply troubled by leaked documentation revealing that Salesforce has pitched AI expertise to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to assist the company ‘expeditiously’ rent 10,000 new brokers and vet tip-line studies,” the letter reads. “Offering ‘Agentforce’ infrastructure to scale a mass deportation agenda that at the moment detains 66,000 folks—73 p.c of whom don’t have any legal report—represents a elementary betrayal of our dedication to the moral use of expertise.”

The letter argues that Benioff’s voice “carries distinctive weight in Washington,” pointing to an episode final fall when Trump known as off an ICE deployment in San Francisco after what appeared to be outreach from Bay Space tech leaders, together with Benioff and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. It urges Benioff to use that affect as a “company statesman” to situation a public assertion condemning what it calls ICE’s unconstitutional conduct and to commit Salesforce to clear “purple traces” barring the usage of its cloud and AI merchandise for state violence.

Benioff has weighed in on each nationwide and native political points for years. He supported Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016 and later turned probably the most high-profile backers of Proposition C, a failed San Francisco poll measure that will have raised taxes to fund packages to deal with homelessness. In 2020, he donated to the first campaigns of some Democratic presidential candidates, together with Kamala Harris.

However since Trump returned to the White Home in January, Benioff has signaled better assist for some Republican leaders. In a single interview, he stated he strives to keep nonpartisan as a result of he additionally owns Time journal. However he additionally joked that, whereas he declined to contribute to Trump’s inauguration fund straight, he had “donated” a photograph of the president on the journal’s cowl, which named him its 2024 Individual of the Yr. “He can use the Time journal cowl at no cost,” Benioff stated within the interview with Fortune.

Benioff additionally confronted backlash from Salesforce staff final fall when he recommended the Nationwide Guard must be despatched to San Francisco to deal with crime forward of the corporate’s annual convention within the metropolis. He later apologized for the remarks, explaining they stemmed from real considerations about security. He later reversed his stance and joined Nvidia’s Huang in asking Trump to chorus from sending troops.