Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff’s remarks at the company’s annual “Company Kickoff” town hall are drawing scrutiny after employees noticed that jokes he made about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were edited out of the official recording. As reported by Business Insider, the internal Slack messages reveal that the employees were told the keynote video was posted, but those looking for the ICEO jokes would find they had been removed. An excerpt of the recording reportedly highlighted a jump cut during Benioff’s introduction, skipping over the controversial moment.For those unaware, 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.Along with this, Benioff also reportedly complained about Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance, adding to the awkwardness of the exchange.
Internal reaction of Salesforce employees
As per the BI report, the Salesforce executives have since addressed the incident internally. Slack general manager Rob Seaman in a message to employees wrote, “I 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.” Some of the staff members also said that they received emails asking them to explain their absence from the event following Benioff’s remarks, adding to frustration.
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.”Salesforce has not responded to multiple requests for comment about Benioff’s jokes or the decision to edit them out of the recording.
