Salesforce executives, including Slack’s new general manager, addressed Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff’s jokes about Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to internal messages.
Benioff angered some employees with the comments on Tuesday, including one about ICE surveilling employees’ travel.
“I want to acknowledge the jokes that happened this morning at CKO,” Slack general manager Rob Seaman wrote in an internal Slack message viewed by Business Insider. “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.
Salesforce has yet to respond to repeated requests about Benioff’s comments and did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.
“I assume there will be a statement that addresses them,” Seaman wrote. “If there isn’t, I’ll talk about it in the next all Slack call, and then I hope we can highlight what was actually super positive from the morning – real, authentic acknowledgment of the work that you’ve all done and the importance of Slack right now.
Salesforce recently promoted Seaman to executive vice president and general manager of Slack, following Slack CEO Denise Dresser’s departure in December to become OpenAI’s chief revenue officer. The company also promoted Joe Inzerillo, its previous chief digital officer, to president of enterprise and AI technology, overseeing both Slack and Agentforce.
Craig Broscow, a VP, also addressed Benioff’s comments on Slack, calling on Benioff to publicly respond.
“Marc has so much valuable insight to share on the Agentic Transformation,” Broscow wrote in a message viewed by Business Insider. “And the quarter was so strong. Everyone’s excited to be here. Most of us love our work and appreciate the privilege of working here. But for the senior leaders who I’m sure follow this thread to engage employee sentiment: this is overshadowing everything else and for everyone who has the courage to post there are 100+ people in Vegas who share their deep disappointment. It would be a step in the right direction and for Marc to acknowledge as soon as possible – ideally publicly – that his attempted joke was extremely upsetting to large segments of his employee base.”
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