Venture Capitalist Resigns From Salesforce Foundation Over Benioff Comments

A prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist resigned on Thursday from the board of Salesforce’s philanthropic arm after the company’s chief executive, Marc Benioff, said last week that he fully supported President Trump and wanted the National Guard to come to San Francisco.

The venture capitalist, Ron Conway, had been a member of the Salesforce Foundation board for a decade. He told Mr. Benioff on Thursday in a fiery email, seen by The New York Times, that their values were no longer aligned and that he was resigning as a director. Mr. Conway has been a close friend of Mr. Benioff for more than 25 years.

Mr. Conway said in the email that he resigned because Mr. Benioff told The New York Times last week that he backed President Trump and thought National Guard troops should be deployed in San Francisco, where Salesforce is based, to help prevent crime. The comments by Mr. Benioff, a billionaire who had been considered Silicon Valley’s rare progressive tech titan, enraged leaders in the liberal city.

“It 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,” Mr. Conway, a top Democratic donor, wrote to Mr. Benioff in the email.

Mr. Conway, through a spokesman, declined to be interviewed for this article. Mr. Benioff did not respond to a request for comment about the resignation.

In the interview with The Times last week, Mr. Benioff said that he had not followed news of ICE raids, the government shutdown or the president’s attacks on the media. He said that he would support a deployment of Guard troops to San Francisco because the city does not have enough police officers.

Though President Trump has touted his use of the military to fight crime, troops are generally forbidden by law from engaging in domestic law enforcement.

Leaders in San Francisco have condemned Mr. Benioff for his remarks and for suggesting that the president should send troops to the city. Mayor Daniel Lurie released new statistics this week that showed homicides in San Francisco were at a 70-year low and that drug overdose deaths have also dropped.

Still, President Trump said on Wednesday that San Francisco could be the next place he sends National Guard troops, and that he appreciated the “great support” for such a deployment, a possible reference to Mr. Benioff and to Elon Musk, who also backed the idea.

Mr. Conway was so disturbed by Mr. Benioff’s comments that he contacted his longtime friend about them and they discussed the matter over the past few days, according to the email. But Mr. Conway did not come away satisfied that Mr. Benioff had reflected on the dangers posed by the Trump administration or the impact of his remarks.

“I have expressed candidly to you, repeatedly, in recent days, that I am shocked and disappointed by your comments calling for an unwanted invasion of San Francisco by federal troops,” Mr. Conway wrote in the email, “and by your willful ignorance and detachment from the impacts of the ICE immigration raids of families with NO criminal record.”

Mr. Conway told Mr. Benioff that San Francisco — “where you don’t even live or vote” — was trying hard to reduce crime and boost its police ranks. Since the pandemic began, Mr. Benioff has lived on the Big Island of Hawaii, where he has bought several parcels of land. He is registered to vote there, not in San Francisco.

The Salesforce Foundation ended 2023 with nearly $400 million in assets, and gave out $36 million that year, according to the organization’s most recent tax filing. The group focuses on aiding disadvantaged students, largely by trying to increase tech literacy, recruit quality educators and promote college preparation.

Among the biggest recipients in 2023 were the San Francisco Unified School District and the Oakland Unified School District, both of which predominantly serve low-income students. The largest single grant, $7.8 million, went to support employment opportunities through the Tides Foundation, a progressive organization that focuses on social justice.

Mr. Benioff is currently presiding over Dreamforce, an annual conference in downtown San Francisco that draws about 50,000 people from around the world. He has threatened in the past to move the event to Las Vegas for safety reasons.

“Your obsession with and constant annual threats to move Dreamforce to Las Vegas is ironic, since it is a fact that Las Vegas has a higher rate of violent crime than San Francisco,” Mr. Conway wrote. “San Francisco does not need a federal invasion because you don’t like paying for extra security for Dreamforce.”

Mr. Benioff has mostly avoided discussing his Times interview at Dreamforce, but he defended his remarks on Tuesday by telling reporters that he just wanted everyone to be safe. He did not respond to questions about Mr. Trump’s attacks on freedom of speech or changes to the H-1B visa program that is crucial to many tech companies.