Marc Benioff Just Can’t Relinquish His Leftist Advocacy Lead Role at Salesforce

On Thursday, National Legal and Policy Center presented a proposal at Salesforce, Inc.’s annual shareholder meeting that would require the board to implement a policy to require the chair of the board of directors to be an independent member from the CEO.

Marc Benioff (pictured above) serves as both Chairman and co-CEO of the company.

The company’s board of directors opposed our proposal, as explained on page 98 in its proxy statement. NLPC filed a proxy memo with the Securities and Exchange Commission that responded in detail to Salesforce’s opposition to our proposal, and explained further its necessity.

Speaking as sponsor of the resolution was Paul Chesser, director of NLPC’s Corporate Integrity Project. A transcript of his three-minute remarks, which you can listen to here, follows:

For the second year in a row, left-wing activist shareholders who bring voluminous proposals against all the other Big Tech companies, have left Salesforce alone.

 

Liberal investors who routinely attack large tech corporations are going easy on Marc Benioff and Salesforce.

 

It’s easy to understand why.

 

He funds their agendas, and they leave him alone.

 

That’s why we’ve seen Salesforce’s home of San Francisco turn into a disgraceful crime- and homeless-ridden hellhole, complete with a poop map, thanks to Mr. Benioff’s political policy beliefs that he has advocated through his Salesforce leadership.

 

The only times we see the City-by-the-Bay cleaned up are when a Chinese dictator shows up to give a speech for big-time corporate executives, or when Mr. Benioff hosts his annual Dreamforce conference.

 

Even Gavin Newsom admits this.

 

It was only a year ago that several big-dollar activist investors pressured Mr. Benioff to cut costs and improve efficiencies at Salesforce.

 

Mr. Benioff squeaked by with some changes and concessions, and stock performance temporarily improved, so the activist investors backed off.

 

Now it’s a year later, and Mr. Benioff has just offered up another dismal earnings report along with poor guidance, and Salesforce’s stock price immediately plummeted.

 

I wonder what those shareholder activists think now?

 

Once again, our warnings about Mr. Benioff’s mismanagement and poor priorities fell on deaf ears, and shareholders pay the price.

 

When are voting institutional shareholders finally going to get it?

 

This is par for the course for Mr. Benioff.

 

For years he tried to pull off a co-CEO charade at Salesforce.

 

Yet time after time his alleged co-CEOs left.

 

Clearly he’s someone that won’t relinquish any power, because his ego won’t let him.

 

No one can work with him at the top, and all we get is chaos and a rollercoaster stock performance as a result.

 

He has the same problem that Howard Schultz did in letting go at Starbucks, and that Bob Iger is having at Disney.

 

They can’t help themselves, and neither can Mr. Benioff.

 

As a result, their companies and investors suffer.

 

Finally, I want to address the falsehood told by the Salesforce board in the proxy statement, accusing my organization of refusing to discuss our proposal with the company.

 

We offered at least three dates to meet to discuss the proposal when we submitted it to Salesforce, within the 30-day requirement under SEC rules.

 

But instead of engaging us on our offered times or suggesting alternatives within the SEC 30-day window, the Company ignored the SEC’s rules, and waited almost three months before they asked us to meet.

 

It is wrong for companies to refuse to abide by SEC guidelines, and then lie about it to try to make proponents look bad.

 

Please vote FOR Proposal 6.

Read NLPC’s proposal for Salesforce, Inc.’s annual shareholder meeting here.

Read NLPC’s proxy memo filed with the SEC in support of its proposal here.

Listen to Chesser’s three-minute remarks presenting the proposal here.