{"id":56971,"date":"2024-06-27T15:00:09","date_gmt":"2024-06-27T19:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nlpc.org\/?p=56971"},"modified":"2024-06-19T14:11:47","modified_gmt":"2024-06-19T18:11:47","slug":"marc-benioff-cant-quit-salesforce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nlpc.org\/corporate-integrity-project\/marc-benioff-cant-quit-salesforce\/","title":{"rendered":"Marc Benioff Just Can’t Relinquish His Leftist Advocacy Lead Role at Salesforce"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Thursday, National Legal and Policy Center presented a\u00a0proposal<\/a>\u00a0at\u00a0Salesforce, Inc.<\/a>\u2019s annual shareholder meeting<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Marc Benioff<\/a> (pictured above) serves as both Chairman and co-CEO of the company.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s board of directors opposed our proposal, as explained on page 98 in its proxy statement<\/a>. NLPC filed a proxy memo<\/a> with the Securities and Exchange Commission that responded in detail to Salesforce’s opposition to our proposal, and explained further its necessity.<\/p>\n

Speaking as sponsor of the resolution was\u00a0Paul Chesser<\/a>, director of NLPC\u2019s\u00a0Corporate Integrity Project<\/a>. A transcript of his three-minute remarks, which you can listen to\u00a0here<\/a>, follows:<\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

Liberal investors who routinely attack large tech corporations are going easy on Marc Benioff and Salesforce.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to understand why.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He funds their agendas<\/a>, and they leave him alone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That\u2019s why we\u2019ve seen Salesforce\u2019s home of San Francisco turn into a disgraceful crime- and homeless-ridden hellhole<\/a>, complete with a poop map<\/a>, thanks to Mr. Benioff\u2019s political policy beliefs that he has advocated<\/a> through his Salesforce leadership.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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<\/a>, or when Mr. Benioff hosts his annual Dreamforce conference<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Even Gavin Newsom admits this<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

Mr. Benioff squeaked by with some changes and concessions, and stock performance temporarily improved, so the activist investors backed off<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now it\u2019s a year later, and Mr. Benioff has just offered up another dismal earnings report<\/a> along with poor guidance, and Salesforce\u2019s stock price immediately plummeted<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I wonder what those shareholder activists think now?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Once again, our warnings<\/a> about Mr. Benioff\u2019s mismanagement and poor priorities<\/a> fell on deaf ears, and shareholders pay the price.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When are voting institutional shareholders finally going to get it?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is par for the course for Mr. Benioff.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For years he tried to pull off a co-CEO charade<\/a> at Salesforce.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yet time after time his alleged co-CEOs left.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Clearly he\u2019s someone that won\u2019t relinquish any power, because his ego won\u2019t let him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No one can work with him at the top, and all we get is chaos and a rollercoaster stock performance as a result.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He has the same problem that Howard Schultz<\/a> did in letting go at Starbucks<\/a>, and that Bob Iger<\/a> is having at Disney<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They can\u2019t help themselves, and neither can Mr. Benioff.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As a result, their companies and investors suffer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Finally, I want to address the falsehood told by the Salesforce board in the proxy statement<\/a>, accusing my organization of refusing to discuss our proposal with the company.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But instead of engaging us on our offered times or suggesting alternatives within the SEC 30-day window, the Company ignored the SEC\u2019s rules, and waited almost three months before they asked us to meet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is wrong for companies to refuse to abide by SEC guidelines, and then lie about it to try to make proponents look bad.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Please vote FOR<\/strong> Proposal 6.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read NLPC\u2019s proposal for Salesforce, Inc.\u2019s annual shareholder meeting here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Read NLPC’s proxy memo filed with the SEC in support of its proposal here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Listen to Chesser\u2019s three-minute remarks presenting the proposal\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Thursday, National Legal and Policy Center presented a\u00a0proposal\u00a0at\u00a0Salesforce, Inc.\u2019s 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\u2019s board […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52017,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,7],"tags":[138,371,370,486,226],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlpc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56971"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlpc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlpc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlpc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlpc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56971"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/nlpc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56977,"href":"https:\/\/nlpc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56971\/revisions\/56977"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlpc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlpc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlpc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlpc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}