Marc Benioff had a busy weekend, between calling for the National Guard to clean up San Francisco (opens in new tab), doing damage control after the inevitable outrage that ensued, and promoting the start of Dreamforce, which kicks off this week in San Francisco.
Somehow, in the midst of all of it, the Salesforce CEO had the time to call up The Standard to respond to questions we sent regarding our article on his disappearing act from San Francisco. The story chronicled how Benioff has pulled away from his hometown in recent years, switching his voter registration to Hawaii and becoming increasingly involved in that state.
That story was published Monday, but there’s a lot of Benioff’s interview that didn’t make it into the piece — including the details of his night out in the Mission that led him to conclude that the city’s crime is out of control, and his claim that The Standard is to blame for the perception that he’s abandoned his hometown.
Below, find some of Benioff’s most interesting comments and revelations.
Some answers have been edited for clarity.
When asked why he changed his voter registration from California to Hawaii in 2021, Benioff pointed to the pandemic.
“I moved to a low COVID area where things were not closed,” he said. (In a text message to The Standard, he added: “It’s not a secret I live in Hawaii. I have been living there on and off for decades.”)
The Standard could find no evidence that Benioff had personally donated to homelessness causes in San Francisco since 2019, when he gave $30 million to fund the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative. When asked if this indicated that he had slowed down his support for the city, he grew angry.
“I’ve read a number of articles in your magazine that are false and that build this narrative that I’m not involved, I’m not here, I’m living in Hawaii, I’m not in San Francisco. And I’m like, I’m actually doing more than anyone. No one has done more. That is the thing.”
“It never says that in those articles ‘Mark Benioff has done more than anyone, and Salesforce has done more than any company ever, ever in the history of San Francisco.’ Who has done more? Nobody.”
“You said it yourself on this call,” he continued. “You just said, ‘Oh Marc, you’re not giving to homelessness. You’re not helping out anymore, are you?’ Well, I am. The numbers are empirical … It’s not [just] that I’m giving, it’s that no one is giving more than I am.”
“How much money has The Standard given to the public schools?” he said. “How much money has The Standard given to the public hospitals? How much money has The Standard given to the public parks? How much money has The Standard given to homelessness?”
“Who owns The Standard? Mike Moritz,” he said. “How much money has Mike Moritz given us in UCSF? How much money has Mike Moritz given to the public schools? How much money has Mike Moritz given to the public parks? Let’s make a list.” [According to Bloomberg (opens in new tab), Moritz, who is chairman of The Standard, donated more than $336 million between 2020 and 2023 to social and political causes. His foundation, Crankstart, is the largest family foundation in the city.]
The Standard asked him about his concerns with crime in San Francisco. He singled out the Mission District and a recent trip there that angered him enough to call up Mayor Daniel Lurie.
“I went to a movie down at the Alamo Drafthouse [one or two months ago],” he said. “I went down there and I drove by a couple hundred people doing drugs on the street. And I called Daniel Lurie and I said, ‘What is going on? Why do you not have this cleaned up?’
“I think that is a serious safety issue for San Francisco to continue to allow these open drug markets,” he said. “People are allowed to defecate on the streets, and it has not been directly addressed. It was not directly addressed by the previous mayor. And it needs to be directly addressed by the current mayor. It’s a major situation.”
Why did Benioff tell The New York Times’ Heather Knight that the National Guard should be called into San Francisco?
“San Francisco has a major issue, and that is that from the time that Gavin Newsom was the mayor to today, the number of cops on the street has fallen from 2,500 cops to 1,500,” he said. “So during Dreamforce, I hire on my own dime every off-duty [California Highway Patrol] and police officer that I can, and I bring them to San Francisco for the last three years. It can be upwards of 200 cops.”
“So I was telling Heather this story, and she said, ‘Well, do you also think then that the National Guard should be brought in? And I just intuitively said to her, ‘Yes, I actually do think it would help, because we don’t have enough cops and everybody knows we don’t have enough cops. And if you go down to that open-air drug market, which is probably happening tonight, there’s not enough cops to manage the situation. And we need more feet on the street.’”
Asked about concerns that the Trump administration could weaponize the National Guard against civilians, Benioff doubled down.
“There’s parts of the city that are still incredibly unsafe,” he said. “And if you haven’t been down there, you’ll be scared to be there. And we should not be scared to be in any part of our city, There should be no no-go zones in San Francisco. And you and I know that. And if you live in San Francisco, you know that too. I’m speaking the truth. I’ve seen things in San Francisco that need to be directly addressed by police, and if the police cannot address it, then bring in whoever can.”