{"id":9251,"date":"2025-10-17T06:32:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T06:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/9251\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T06:32:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T06:32:13","slug":"benioff-slammed-by-longtime-vc-ally-over-call-for-troops-in-san-francisco-silicon-valley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/9251\/","title":{"rendered":"Benioff slammed by longtime VC ally over call for troops in San Francisco \u2013 Silicon Valley"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Biz Carson and Felipe Marques<\/p>\n

(Bloomberg) \u2014 Venture capitalist Ron Conway is leaving the board of Salesforce Inc.\u2019s philanthropic foundation after blasting Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff for calling on President Donald Trump<\/a> to send the National Guard to San Francisco.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt saddens me immensely to say that with your recent comments, and failure to understand their impact, I now barely recognize the person I have so long admired,\u201d Conway said in an email sent Thursday to Benioff and several board members of San Francisco-based Salesforce. A copy of the message was reviewed by Bloomberg News.<\/p>\n

Conway told Benioff that he was \u201cshocked and disappointed by your comments calling for an unwanted invasion of San Francisco by federal troops and by your willful ignorance and detachment from the impacts of the ICE immigration raids of families with NO criminal record, attacks on freedom of speech, and other unlawful policies.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Trump floated San Francisco as a potential target for National Guard deployments<\/a> as part of his federal crime crackdown. Benioff told the New York Times last week that he supported such a move. \u201cIf they can be cops, I\u2019m all for it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Conway declined to comment through a spokesperson, while Benioff didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment. A Salesforce representative said in a statement, \u201cWe have deep gratitude for Ron Conway and his incredible contributions to the Salesforce Foundation board.\u201d<\/p>\n

The email was reported earlier Thursday by the Times.<\/p>\n

Trump has moved to deploy US troops and federal law enforcement officials to major cities \u2014 including Los Angeles, Washington, Memphis, Chicago and Portland \u2014 to target crime and counter demonstrations against his deportations of undocumented migrants. The president has claimed that Democratic state and local officials have failed to protect citizens and allowed violence to spiral out of control, even as San Francisco\u2019s crime rates have fallen in recent months and the city is on track to see the fewest homicides since the 1950s.<\/p>\n

Conway\u2019s acrimonious message lays bare a larger conflict within Silicon Valley, as tech luminaries, including some longtime Democratic donors like Benioff, have flocked to Trump. In the tight-knit circle of big tech and venture capital, that shift is causing tensions that are now bubbling up to the surface.<\/p>\n

Conway, 74, has long been an ally of Benioff\u2019s and served on the foundation\u2019s board for more than a decade. The founder of SV Angel, Conway has been a major political donor, backing Democrat Kamala Harris for president on 2024. He has also been involved in local San Francisco causes, including helping fund Mayor Daniel Lurie\u2019s inauguration.<\/p>\n

The comments caused an uproar in San Francisco, where Benioff, 61, held his firm\u2019s Dreamforce event this week, which attracts tens of thousands of Salesforce employees and customers. Comedians Kumail Nanjiani and Ilana Glazer canceled their performances at the three-day event, though neither publicly criticized Benioff or Salesforce, according to the San Francisco Standard.<\/p>\n

In his email, Conway lambasted Benioff for his threats to move the event from the city. \u201cDreamforce is important to San Francisco and the city bends over backward to make it a success,\u201d he said. \u201cBut San Francisco does not need a federal invasion because you don\u2019t like paying for extra security for Dreamforce.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a92025 Bloomberg L.P.<\/p>\n

Originally Published: October 16, 2025 at 7:31 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Biz Carson and Felipe Marques (Bloomberg) \u2014 Venture capitalist Ron Conway is leaving the board of Salesforce…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[184,387,7,181,395,2570,101,396,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-9251","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-bay-area","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-peninsula","13":"tag-salesforce","14":"tag-san-francisco","15":"tag-san-francisco-county","16":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","17":"tag-san-francisco-news","18":"tag-sf","19":"tag-sf-headlines","20":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9251","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=9251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}