Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is facing criticism from employees after joking during a company event that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were present and monitoring international staff, according to The Guardian.
Employees who attended the company’s kickoff conference in Las Vegas told the outlet that Benioff asked staff from outside the United States to stand and then joked that ICE agents were “in the back room” watching them.
Multiple attendees said the comment drew boos and immediate criticism from workers in the audience. Several employees described the reaction inside the venue to The Guardian as tense and said complaints spread quickly across internal Slack channels and LinkedIn.
WIRED reported on Tuesday that employees are circulating an internal letter urging Benioff to denounce ICE actions, block the agency from using the company’s software tools, and support legislation to reform the agency.
The letter references recent fatal encounters involving ICE officers in Minnesota and argues that providing technology to support immigration enforcement hiring and operations conflicts with the company’s stated ethics commitments. One employee told WIRED that the internal pushback was stronger than after previous controversial remarks by Benioff last fall supporting President Trump’s call to deploy the National Guard to San Francisco to address crime.
Slack general manager Rob Seaman, whose unit is owned by the company, addressed the remarks in an internal message reported by Business Insider, writing that he “cannot defend or explain them. They do not align with my personal values and I know this to be the case for many of you as well.”
Business Insider also reported that the version of Benioff’s keynote later posted to the company’s internal site did not include the ICE jokes. Employees noted in internal messages that the remarks had been edited out, and video excerpts reviewed by the outlet showed a jump cut early in the speech.
One worker cited by The Guardian wrote that they were “fearful” for colleagues on international visas and “shocked, angered, sad and frustrated” by leadership’s statements, adding they worried about retaliation for speaking out.
Originally published on Latin Times
