SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — Ron Conway, one of the most prominent and influential venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, has resigned from the board of the Salesforce Foundation over Marc Benioff’s recent comments, according to multiple reports. Conway is the founder of SV Angel, an investment group with a portfolio that reads like a who’s who of tech A-listers, including Airbnb, Doordash, Google and Meta, to name just a few.
Conway, who is also known as a prolific Democratic donor, resigned his position on the board following Benioff’s recent comments on deploying the National Guard to San Francisco. In an email to the Salesforce founder that was first reported by The New York Times, Conway told Benioff their “values were no longer aligned.”
KRON4 News partner, The San Francisco Standard, obtained a copy of the message Conway reportedly sent Benioff.
“It saddens me immensely that with your recent comments, and failure to understand their impact, I know barely recognize the person I have so long admired,” Conway told Benioff.
“I have expressed candidly to you, repeatedly, in recent days, that I am shocked and disappointed by your comments calling for an unwanted invasion of San Francisco by federal troops, and by your willful ignorance and detachment from the impacts of the ICE immigration raids of families with NO criminal records, efforts to gerrymander elections, attacks on freedom of speech, and other unlawful policies,” the email reportedly continued.
Benioff, who was been friends with Conway for more than two decades, made the comments last week in an interview with the New York Times ahead of this week’s Salesforce “Dreamforce” event. He has since attempted to walk them back somewhat, despite refusing to directly address the comments at a keynote for the conference Tuesday.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump said he would “strongly recommend” looking at San Francisco for potential National Guard deployment. Despite San Francisco city officials touting the city’s significant drop in crime — and historic low homicide rate — earlier in the day, the president claimed “government officials” had asked for federal intervention.
While there are no public records of city or state officials asking for federal intervention in SF, Benioff’s call for the guard to be sent in was echoed by fellow tech billionaire Elon Musk.
“It’s the only solution at this point,” Musk said on X, the social media platform he owns. “Nothing else has or will work.”
Conway, in his message to Benioff, seemed to imply that the Salesforce founder was asking for the National Guard to be sent in in order to avoid paying the San Francisco Police Department for extra security, saying, “San Francisco does not need a federal invasion because you don’t like paying for extra security for Dreamforce.”
Benioff is a San Francisco native who has long been known for his generosity and philanthropy toward the city. However, since the COVID-19 pandemic, he has lived primarily on the Big Island of Hawaii.
A Salesforce spokesperson provided KRON4 with the following statement regarding the matter:
“We have deep gratitude for Ron Conway and his incredible contributions to the Salesforce Foundation Board for over a decade. To date, we’ve given more than $250 million to public schools and education nonprofits to advance opportunity and access for young people, including $30 million announced this week. Globally, the company has given more than $840 million in all-time giving and 10 million employee volunteer hours to communities globally. And we created the 1-1-1 model when we founded the company which today is a global movement of 19,000 companies who have collectively ignited $3 billion.“
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