![\"Benioff](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/C659DBA125E69407F94546B5B0200F7E.jpg\")
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SAN FRANCISCO – Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is drawing sharp criticism after suggesting that President Donald Trump should send the National Guard to San Francisco to address the city’s police shortage.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His remarks have sparked a wave of backlash from Bay Area officials and residents, days ahead of the company\u2019s major annual conference, Dreamforce.<\/p>\n
In a phone interview with The New York Times<\/a> from his private jet, Benioff said: “We don\u2019t have enough cops, so if they can be cops, I\u2019m all for it.”<\/p>\n Benioff said Salesforce is funding hundreds of off-duty law enforcement officers to help patrol the convention area.<\/p>\n Dreamforce is expected to bring 45,000 attendees to downtown San Francisco.<\/p>\n Big picture view:<\/p>\n Currently, the San Francisco Police Department has about 1,500 officers. Benioff said he believes the city needs 1,000 more. Mayor Daniel Lurie has set a goal to increase staffing by 500.<\/p>\n “We are doing everything we can to drive crime down, and it’s working,” Lurie said. “It’s down 30% this year. The good vibes in San Francisco are coming back. More office space is being leased and vacated. San Franciscans know that San Francisco is on the rise.”<\/p>\n San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins strongly pushed back on the idea of federal troops, warning in an Instagram post that she would not hesitate to take legal action if they overstep.<\/p>\n “So to Mr. Trump: we don’t want what you have to offer here in San Francisco, nor do we need,” Jenkins said. “Each and every day, we have been doing what we need to make San Francisco a safer city.”<\/p>\n What they’re saying:<\/p>\n Despite Benioff\u2019s concerns, many locals and visitors say they feel safer and have noticed significant improvements on the streets in recent months.<\/p>\n “I feel safe. I\u2019ve been walking around and hanging out, and I haven\u2019t felt unsafe not one time,” said Gary Slates, a first-time tourist from North Carolina. “I like that they have the people in the pink cleaning up. They\u2019re picking up behind people, so I like that. I\u2019ve never seen that either.”<\/p>\n “It\u2019s just preposterous, it\u2019s just ludicrous,” said Sabrina Simpson, a repeat visitor from Seattle. “This is as crazy as him sending troops into all the other cities as well. This city is vibrant.”<\/p>\n “I don\u2019t know what the National Guard would do here. There\u2019s nothing for them to do except maybe help pick up the trash or something,” added Smokey Simpson.<\/p>\n San Francisco resident Riley Aldis also rejected the idea.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Sending the National Guard in, sending the military in, you\u2019re instigating these sorts of things. You\u2019re not helping the city so much as you\u2019re escalating a situation that wasn\u2019t there to begin with,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n State Senator Scott Wiener said any deployment of federal troops to San Francisco would cross a legal line.<\/p>\n “We do not need the U.S. military, National Guard or otherwise, here in San Francisco,” Wiener said. “That would be illegal. It\u2019s completely unjustified, and that would be just part of Trump\u2019s authoritarianism toward U.S. cities.”<\/p>\n Benioff told The New York Times that he now spends most of his time living on the Big Island of Hawaii and wasn\u2019t certain how many days per year he is in San Francisco.<\/p>\n Despite the controversy, both Lurie and Wiener expressed strong support for Salesforce and welcomed the economic benefits of Dreamforce, which is expected to pump $100 million into the local economy.<\/p>\n The Source: Original reporting by Betty Yu of KTVU<\/p>\n News<\/a>San Francisco<\/a>Politics<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO – Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is drawing sharp criticism after suggesting that President Donald Trump should…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[1184,100,13,101,103,102,104,106,105,1181],"class_list":{"0":"post-3501","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-politics","11":"tag-san-francisco","12":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","13":"tag-san-francisco-news","14":"tag-sf","15":"tag-sf-headlines","16":"tag-sf-news","17":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}