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Salesforce co-CEO Marc Benioff speaks at the grand opening of the Salesforce Tower in San Francisco in May 2018.
Salesforce co-CEO and co-founder Marc Benioff called San Francisco’s 70 billionaires and other tech elites to donate more to their own community in an event in the city on Monday
“San Francisco is amazing,” he said. “We have these incredible companies and entrepreneurs, innovation and technology, but we cannot separate ourselves from others. We have to get back to the feeling that we are one, and we are responsible for the city that we are living in and growing our businesses in.”
He added, “Homelessness has always been an issue, but not like this….We’re at a tipping point.”
Benioff made the comments at the Wired 25th anniversary summit in San Francisco.
Benioff recently argued with Square and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey over a proposal that will go before San Francisco voters in November, Proposition C. The proposal could lead to new taxes on the largest businesses in San Francisco, where both companies are headquartered, generating money earmarked to solve endemic homelessness in the area.
The Salesforce CEO strongly backed Prop C, even though it could wind up costing his company $10 million in added taxes annually. Dorsey opposed the measure, voicing support for San Francisco Mayor London Breed instead. (Breed also opposed to Prop C saying the plan was likely to harm the local economy.)
At the conference, Benioff offered a not-so-veiled criticism of some of his contemporaries in the city.
“There’s a group of people in the city who are willing to give. And there’s a group of people in the city who don’t.”
