After potentially helping encourage Trump two weeks ago in his quest to invade Democratic-led cities, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff was reportedly one of several “friends” Trump spoke to Wednesday who talked him out of a planned incursion in San Francisco.

For days, President Trump has been saying that San Francisco leaders “wanted” him to send National Guard troops or federal agents into the city to address crime here — which could be him interpreting the words of billionaires Elon Musk and Marc Benioff as being representative of the city’s leadership.

But apparently he took some phone calls Wednesday night, after media reports about the deployment of 100 US Customs and Border Patrol agents to Alameda, and he decided to stand down, at least where San Francisco is concerned. Mayor Daniel Lurie tweeted about his conversation with Trump Thursday morning, and Trump himself went on Truth Social to give his side around 11 am PT.

Trump notes that Lurie asked him “very nicely” not to invade the city, and while he thinks it’s “a mistake,” he’s giving Lurie a shot to prove that things are under control here — which makes it sound like this is still a highly volatile situation in which Trump could change his mind again.

Trump says that friends Benioff and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang both told him in phone calls that “the future of San Francisco is great.”

“The Federal Government was preparing to ‘surge’ San Francisco, California, on Saturday, but friends of mine who live in the area called last night to ask me not to go forward with the surge in that the Mayor, Daniel Lurie, was making substantial progress,” Trump writes. “I spoke to Mayor Lurie last night and he asked, very nicely, that I give him a chance to see if he can turn it around. I told him I think he is making a mistake, because we can do it much faster, and remove the criminals that the Law does not permit him to remove. I told him, ‘It’s an easier process if we do it, faster, stronger, and safer but, let’s see how you do?'”

Trump continues,  “The people of San Francisco have come together on fighting Crime, especially since we began to take charge of that very nasty subject. Great people like Jensen Huang, Marc Benioff, and others have called saying that the future of San Francisco is great. They want to give it a ‘shot.’ Therefore, we will not surge San Francisco on Saturday.”

Nonetheless, those federal agents appear to still have arrived at Coast Guard Base Alameda, and the potential remains for some sort of immigration-focused operations in Oakland or elsewhere.

And, adding to the tension, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday afternoon, “The president heard [Lurie] out. [The President] said, ‘OK I’ll give you a chance. We’ll be watching. If I feel as though you continue to fail your citizens, the federal government may have to step in.'”

And Leavitt added, “We will continue to watch San Francisco.”

Benioff seems to have gotten an earful from the likes of Ron Conway, Lurie, and likely others after running his mouth two weeks ago and showing blind, tone-deaf deference to Trump. And Benioff has had a habit the last several years of using his pre-Dreamforce interviews to shit on San Francisco in some way, perhaps so that city leaders will continue to do his bidding to keep the annual convention from moving to Las Vegas, like Oracle’s OpenWorld already did.

Trump previously gave assurances to Governor Gavin Newsom that he would not federalize the National Guard during protests in Los Angeles in June, and then immediately turned around and did it anyway, according to Newsom. So we have to take this all with some caution and skepticism. Trump is just waiting for an image of an angry mob that he can react to and use as justification to do as he pleases, vis a vis sending in troops.

Newsom and SF City Attorney David Chiu have already said this week that they would sue the Trump administration immediately if troops were deployed in San Francisco.

Protest rallies are still on for 5 pm Thursday at Embarcadero Plaza, and at the city halls of San Jose and Redwood City.

Previously: Trump Tells Mayor Daniel Lurie That Federal Deployment In SF Is Called Off

Top image: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (L) talks onstage with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff (R) during Salesforce’s Dreamforce on September 17, 2024 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)