Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)
Time owner Marc Benioff irked some employees when he asked international staffers to stand up at a conference before joking there were ICE agents in the back of the room, presumably ready to deport them. That move drew “faint boos from the crowd,” according to a report from Gazetteer SF.
The quip was made in front of thousands of Salesforce employees at the company’s annual kickoff event in Las Vegas on Tuesday. Salesforce is the tech giant that Benioff co-founded in 1999, which helped him build a $7.5 billion net worth and acquire Time magazine for $190 million in 2018.
Gazetteer SF reported Benioff tried doubling down a bit later, even though his initial ICE joke failed to land.
Reporter Joshua Bote wrote:
Later, he offered a callback to that groaner: He asked how many people had not yet used a Slackbot tool, the tipster said, then cracked another joke about ICE being present. He then took a jab at Bad Bunny’s instant-classic Super Bowl halftime performance Sunday, saying that he wasn’t sure what it was about.
Salesforce employees were not pleased.
“It’s hard to believe this company still has values when you make completely off-base jokes about ICE in your opening keynote,” said one employee inside an internal Slack viewed by Gazetteer. “That’s unacceptable.” (The comment received almost 800 emoji reactions in support.)
A rep for Benioff had not responded by the time the story was published on Tuesday.
Another employee vented to Gazetteer that the joke felt “tone-deaf and quite cruel,” and pointed out it seemed to go against “equality” being one of the company’s stated “core values.”
That comes a few months after Benioff upset some employees and Bay Area locals when he supported President Donald Trump’s idea of sending National Guard troops to San Francisco.
“We don’t have enough cops, so if they can be cops, I’m all for it,” Benioff said in October.
He walked back his comment the following week and said that he “sincerely” apologized for making it.
The post Time Owner Marc Benioff Booed for Making ICE Joke at International Employees first appeared on Mediaite.