Salesforce employees are circulating an internal open letter urging CEO Marc Benioff to publicly denounce US Immigration and Customs Enforcement after he cracked jokes about ICE agents surveilling international workers at a major company event in Las Vegas this week. During his opening keynote at Salesforce’s annual Company Kickoff on Tuesday, Benioff asked employees who had traveled from outside the US to stand up—then quipped that ICE agents were in the building keeping tabs on them, according to reports from Wired, Business Insider, and 404 Media, all of which viewed internal Slack messages. The room reportedly groaned. Employees flooded Slack channels with anger and disbelief, with one writing, “It’s hard to believe this company still has values when you make completely off-base jokes about ICE in your opening keynote.”The backlash was swift. In a channel called #airing-of-grievances, one employee posted a meme asking “Are we the baddies?” while others questioned whether any apology could undo the damage. Several employees told outlets they were “furious,” with one describing the mood as employees going “absolutely apeshit” on internal channels.
An open letter demands Benioff take a public stand against ICE
Beyond the jokes, employees are pushing for something more concrete. The open letter, first reported by Wired, calls on Benioff to issue a public statement condemning what it describes as ICE’s “unconstitutional conduct” and to draw clear “red lines” barring the use of Salesforce’s cloud and AI products for immigration enforcement. It specifically flags leaked documentation showing Salesforce pitched its Agentforce AI technology to help ICE rapidly hire 10,000 new agents and process tip-line reports.The letter also references the recent killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, calling them a “devastating indictment of a system that has discarded human decency.”
Benioff’s influence in Washington adds weight to the debate
The letter pointedly notes that Benioff’s voice “carries unique weight” in political circles, citing an episode last fall when Trump reportedly called off an ICE deployment in San Francisco after outreach from Bay Area tech leaders, including Benioff and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.Salesforce did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
