Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff warns Dreamforce could leave SF

For years, Marc Benioff has turned the quest to help San Francisco into a core part of both his political identity and his company’s mission. Now, the Salesforce CEO appears to be worried the city is too far gone.

“If this Dreamforce is impacted by the current situation with homelessness and drug use it may be the last Dreamforce” in San Francisco, Benioff reportedly said in the interview, which took place two weeks before the opening keynote scheduled for Sept. 12. (The Chronicle and SFGATE are both owned by Hearst but have separate newsrooms.)

Benioff reportedly added that this year’s convention will bring 40,000 people to the city and generate $57 million for the downtown economy, saying, “It’s in all of our interests for it to go well.” The majority of Dreamforce’s attendees joined virtually last year — in the pre-pandemic years, city hotels would sell out as attendance shot past 150,000.

As the billionaire lobbied hard for 2018’s Proposition C, a business tax for homeless services in the city, he called San Francisco’s streets “a horror show” and “extremely embarrassing” in an interview with the Chronicle. Some Dreamforce attendees had emailed him to complain, he said. The proposition — backed by Benioff in speeches, tweets and millions of dollars in donations — passed and finally made it out of court in September 2020, providing hundreds of millions of dollars for homeless services since. 

The city’s struggles have continued, with thousands still unhoused in San Francisco. At a rally last week, Mayor London Breed squared off against advocates for unhoused individuals over a court order against homeless encampment sweeps. Many see the crisis as being hand in hand with the devastating drug emergency: Overdoses killed around 600 people in San Francisco last year. Drug use on San Francisco’s streets has been the target of widespread media attention, as has retail theft.

Benioff, who founded his firm in San Francisco and owns the naming rights to the city’s tallest skyscraper, has blamed the tech industry for the city’s major inequality — and seemingly seen himself as a force for corrective good. He’s donated $200 million to UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital and argued for “stakeholder capitalism,” where corporations act for the greater good.

His conference, advertised as “the AI event of the year,” has long provided him with a platform for attention and investment in the city. September’s lineup includes Matthew McConaughey, Jane Goodall, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and the Foo Fighters. The former two spoke at last year’s event.

At last year’s conference, Benioff spoke excitedly about a slight decline in the city’s total homeless population with Bloomberg. Afterward, he also posted on Twitter that there were no safety incidents reported. 

But this year, even before the conference begins, he appears to be taking a different tone. Salesforce declined SFGATE’s request for comment.

Hear of anything happening at Salesforce or another tech company? Contact tech reporter Stephen Council securely at [email protected] or on Signal at 628-204-5452.