Billionaire Marc Benioff apologizes for saying troops should be deployed to San Francisco | San Francisco
Marc Benioff, the billionaire CEO of Salesforce and owner of Time magazine, apologized Friday for saying he supported Donald Trump sending national guard troops to San Francisco.
Facing increasing reactions in California, Benioff said the following in a speech: to post “After listening closely to my fellow San Franciscans and our local officials… I do not believe the National Guard is needed to provide security in San Francisco”.
He said his earlier comments about his company’s major annual conference, Dreamforce, held this week, were “out of an abundance of caution.” “I sincerely apologize for the concern it has caused. I have full confidence that our city will make the most progress when we all work together in a spirit of partnership.”
The executive of the cloud-based software company announced his support for federal distribution. report “We don’t have enough police, so if they can be police, I’m all for it,” he told the New York Times last week. The newspaper said he made clear that he “enthusiastically supports President Trump.”
The comments sparked uproar as critics noted long-standing federal law It broadly prohibits the deployment of troops domestically for criminal law enforcement duties.
Benioff’s pro-Trump remarks also marked a sharp turn from his previous support for liberal policies. During Trump’s first administration, he was outspoken on wealth inequality and supported a 2018 local ballot measure to tax major corporations in San Francisco to increase funding for homeless services. In an interview with the Guardian at the time, he called on other billionaires to “hoard” their wealth and criticized those opposing the measure, saying: “You’re either for the homeless or you’re for yourself.”
According to the New York Times, the CEO currently lives mostly in Hawaii.
He walked back his comments days after Trump said San Francisco could be the next target for the deployment of federal troops. While California and city leaders said the intervention was not welcome or necessary, immigrant rights groups said they were preparing for a possible increase in raids, arrests and detentions.
Benioff said in an interview last week that he believes 1,000 more officers should be added to San Francisco’s 1,500-person force. During his conference, he said that “there will be police on every corner, just like before.”
Trump has repeatedly used false and exaggerated claims about out-of-control crime to justify federal crackdowns on liberal cities that have sparked mass protests and faced aggressive responses from law enforcement.
Speaking to the FBI director on Wednesday, the president said: “At the request of government officials, I would strongly recommend… that you start looking at San Francisco… 10 years ago, 15 years ago it was one of our great cities, and now it’s a mess… Every American deserves to live in a community where they don’t have to fear being mugged, killed, robbed, raped, assaulted, or shot.”
California governor Gavin Newsom responded to Trump saying the city was “great” 15 years ago by stating that he was the mayor of San Francisco and said the city had seen a 45% drop in murders and a 40% drop in robberies this year compared to 2019.
The city’s mayor and law enforcement leaders also praised falling crime and increased police recruitment earlier this week, and the district attorney said local leaders are “keeping this problem under control.”
