Salesforce employees call on CEO Benioff to cancel ICE ‘opportunities’

Over 1,400 Salesforce workers have signed a letter calling on CEO Marc Benioff to drop potential enterprise with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement company, two folks acquainted with the trouble instructed CNBC.

“We’re deeply troubled by latest press reviews describing Salesforce pitches of AI expertise to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to assist the company ‘expeditiously’ rent 10,000 new brokers and vet tip-line reviews,” the letter reads.

The letter calls on Benioff to cancel “all energetic pitches or ‘alternatives’ for ICE enforcement and hiring” and difficulty a public assertion demanding the elimination of masked brokers in U.S. cities.

The Salesforce worker letter is the newest instance of tech staff elevating issues in regards to the U.S. company’s use of their corporations’ providers after ICE brokers killed U.S. residents Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota in January.

Earlier on Tuesday, Benioff joked about ICE being current at an worker gathering in Las Vegas, 404 Media reported. The incident led workers to criticize the feedback in an inner Slack discussion board, the 2 folks instructed CNBC.

Letter signatories are asking Salesforce to inform staff what sorts of providers it’s offering to ICE and “pause or prohibit infrastructure, AI techniques or providers that allow ICE operational scale-up.”

“We’re involved that Salesforce services could also be enabling ICE to broaden recruitment, onboarding and operational capability,” reads a supplementary doc to the letter, which CNBC seen. The doc cited an October New York Times report saying that Salesforce described its software program as an “perfect platform” for ICE agent recruitment in a response to a request for data.

The letter from workers comes at a tough time for the corporate. Buyers have been concerned about the potential of AI fashions hurting the expansion prospects of software program corporations, together with Salesforce. Its inventory is down about 27% up to now in 2026. In December, the corporate touted its work with the U.S. authorities and called for progress between 9% and 10% within the present fiscal yr, which might be up barely.

Wired reported in regards to the letter earlier Tuesday. Salesforce didn’t instantly present remark.

The letter from Salesforce workers comes after 900 Google workers requested their firm to divest itself from ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Safety as of final week. Enterprise leaders together with Apple CEO Tim Prepare dinner have additionally decried the behavior of ICE brokers in clashes with protesters.

“Workers face actual private {and professional} threat when Salesforce is perceived as enabling ICE, together with reputational hurt, social focusing on or being misidentified as complicit in actions they oppose,” the complement reads. “On the similar time, workers can not make knowledgeable choices about their work when the scope, governance and bounds of Salesforce’s relationship with ICE are opaque.”

Organizers plan to ship the letter to Benioff by Friday, in accordance with the doc.

The letter credit Benioff for saying in October that he did not believe the Nationwide Guard wanted to deploy to San Francisco, the place Salesforce has its headquarters and holds its annual Dreamforce convention. One week earlier, The New York Instances reported that Benioff supported President Donald Trump’s concept of bringing troops to the town.

In Might, the U.S. Common Providers Administration mentioned Salesforce offered discounts on Slack, its crew communication software program, to a slew of presidency businesses. Adobe, Microsoft and ServiceNow additionally prolonged worth cuts to be used of their software program throughout the U.S. authorities.

In October, Benioff held a conversation with Trump’s synthetic intelligence and cryptocurrency czar, David Sacks, and in November, the Salesforce CEO attended a dinner with the president on the White Home alongside different expertise executives. He posted a photograph of himself with Lawyer Common Pam Bondi on X.

“Marc, you will have usually mentioned that ‘enterprise is the best platform for change,'” the letter reads. “At present, that platform should be used to defend our neighbors’ constitutional rights and the security of our communities.”