Send troops to Silicon Valley! San Francisco invested $15 billion after provoking public outrage| Silicon Valley Observation

I support the president sending troops to San Francisco! Another top tech tycoon in Silicon Valley has lined up to support President Trump, openly opposing the ruling Democrats in California. This unambiguous statement even shocked his public relations team. But then amid criticism, he announced a $15 billion investment project to conduct crisis public relations.
"I fully support President Trump and I think he did a good job. "Marc Benioff, founder and CEO of Salesforce, said so in an interview with The New York Times over the weekend. He said he did not pay attention to Trump's controversial decisions such as arresting illegal immigrants.
In the interview, Benioff was full of praise for the Republican president, just like technology tycoons such as Bezos, Cook and Zuckerberg. Benioff, whose personal wealth exceeds 10 billion US dollars, was interviewed on his private jet. Considering that The New York Times is the flagship media of the American left, Benioff doesn't seem to mind the reaction of liberals at all.
He even made it clear that he supported President Trump in sending troops to San Francisco, hoping to see heavily armed National Guard soldiers patrolling the streets to reduce San Francisco's crime rate.According to media reports, after these words, even the public relations chief around him couldn't help but widen his chin. Obviously, Benioff did not communicate with his public relations team in advance.
Perhaps the public relations chief did not expect that the boss would take the initiative to get involved in political affairs and unequivocally expressed his support for President Trump to send troops to major cities in the United States, openly opposing the Democratic Party in power in California and Silicon Valley. And, Dreamforce, Salesforce's most important annual conference, is taking place in San Francisco this week.
Of course, Benioff is super rich and can say whatever he wants. However, the public relations team could only complain in its own heart and make crisis public relations plans for the ensuing wave of negatives. Cleaning up the boss's mess, that's their job.
In some respects, Benioff's dissatisfaction with San Francisco's security is reasonable: although it owns many technology giants and is a high-income area in the United States, San Francisco has always been criticized for its social security problems, and there are also serious problems. Homelessness, tents are set up on the roadside of many streets, raising health and safety concerns.
Violent crimes in San Francisco are not serious in the United States, but rampant car theft, zero-dollar purchases and drug crimes have caused people and businesses to complain endlessly.In the past few years, many shopping malls and supermarkets have gradually withdrawn from downtown San Francisco. Technology giants such as Oracle have also moved their annual conferences out of the city, outspoken criticism of San Francisco's high prices, drug crimes and homelessness.
But Benioff is really holding a hot potato when discussing this topic now. President Trump has sent troops to major cities in the United States to maintain law and order, which has become a new focus of fierce struggle between the two parties in the United States recently. Although the National Guard is usually at the disposal of state governors, the President has the right to directly take over and mobilize the military under special circumstances. During the racial riots in 1968 and 1992, the then-president dispatched the National Guard to quell the unrest.
However, in the past, U.S. presidents had to federalize the National Guard in response to requests for assistance from governors. The controversy this time is that President Trump directly ignored the strong opposition of various Democratic governors and invoked the Insubordination Act to federalize their National Guard and deploy them to major cities to combat "rampant crime and illegal immigration." This is his main political achievement project.
From Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., to Memphis and Portland, President Trump also plans to send troops to major cities such as Chicago, New York, Baltimore and San Francisco. Of course, Trump did not seek the opinions of Democratic officials, but directly declared that these areas were in a serious security crime crisis.
The move was quickly met with strong resistance from Democratic state governments, who did not believe their cities were dangerous enough to require military policing. Democratic governors such as California Governor Newsom and Illinois Governor Pritzker have filed lawsuits to block President Trump's troop deployment plan. An Oregon judge has issued an injunction temporarily preventing the president from taking over the state's National Guard.
Therefore, Benioff made it clear at this time that he supported President Trump in sending troops to San Francisco and letting soldiers patrol the streets. This was undoubtedly a political team. It was not only the greatest support for Trump, but also a stab to the California Democratic Party.
Benioff was once a big donor for Democrats and a major supporter of Obama and Hillary Clinton. He once held a fundraising event for Hillary Clinton at his mansion. Moreover, he once pushed San Francisco to tax large businesses and raise funds to resettle the homeless. Almost everyone believes that he is a ultra-rich man leaning towards liberalism.
But Benioff is now trying to distance himself from the Democrats. He publicly stated,"I have been a Republican for a long time before becoming an independent voter. I have never been a progressive person.”
Considering that so many tech tycoons have turned to Trump in the past year, unabashedly proactively approaching the president, offering donations and loyalty, Benioff's political shift does not seem so shocking.
Benioff has remained politically neutral in the past two general elections. He did not donate money to Biden, nor did he take a side with Harris, and even publicly criticized Harris. After Trump was elected, Benioff immediately expressed his congratulations. After all, Salesforce has many contracts with the U.S. federal government.
Although Salesforce only donated $100,000 to Trump's inauguration, which is not on the same level as other technology giants 'million-dollar gifts, Benioff's Time magazine selected Trump as last year's "Person of the Year", which has given the president enough face he wants. In 2018, Benioff personally spent US$190 million to acquire Time magazine and took control of this influential and established media.
After Trump took office, Benioff maintained a good relationship with the White House. Last month, he and American business leaders such as Huang Renxun, Cook, and Ultraman visited the UK with Trump and attended a state banquet at Buckingham Palace. Benioff was still in a good mood when talking about the state banquet, saying that he "thanked President Trump in person for everything he had done."
Obviously, Benioff's political stance will satisfy President Trump. It may also trigger other technological innovation leaders to follow suit and support the federal government's iron-fisted approach to policing large cities. Because Benioff has a special significance for San Francisco as the "first good".
Benioff was born into a family of Jewish lawyers in San Francisco and is the fourth generation San Franciscans in the family. His grandfather was elected to the San Francisco City Councilman and was the main promoter of the San Francisco Metro BART system. As a rich kid, Benioff grew up in Hillsborough, a wealthy area south of San Francisco, and then entered the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
As a global mecca for innovation and entrepreneurship, Silicon Valley attracts elite talents from around the world. The vast majority of founders and executives of technology companies are not local. There are only a handful of technology innovation leaders who are truly born here, including Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, Apple co-founders Steve Jobs and Wozniak, and Benioff.
After successfully founding Salesforce and becoming a billionaire, Benioff generously donated money to give back to his hometown. From building children's hospitals, to funding scientific research in universities, to promoting children's science education, to helping the homeless, Benioff is generous in donating to people's livelihood projects in San Francisco. Although he is not the richest man in San Francisco, he is considered to be the best man in San Francisco.
In addition, Salesforce brings tens of thousands of visitors and hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue to San Francisco every year through its annual Dreamforce conference. While the annual events of many technology giants such as Apple, Google, and Oracle have left San Francisco, only Dreamforce still insists on holding them in San Francisco, entirely because of Benioff's hometown complex.
Benioff emphasized that his family and company have donated more than $1 billion to the Bay Area over the past 26 years, including a recent $100 million personal donation to UCSF Children's Hospital and $39 million in corporate grants to schools and children's causes. "I don't think anyone is solving more jobs, with more donations and support for San Francisco than I do."
But on the other hand, taking sides with Trump has also caused Benioff to cause a lot of controversy in San Francisco and California. Many liberals angrily criticized the billionaire for "betraying" San Francisco.
San Francisco's new mayor, Daniel Lurie, is also Jewish and one of the heirs of jeans giant Levi's. The politically moderate did not respond directly to Benioff's remarks, but stressed that San Francisco's crime rate had dropped significantly and that police patrols were increasing, with the subtext that "San Francisco does not need military policing at all."
But the other Democrats were less polite to Benioff, and they almost collectively blasted him.San Francisco City Councilman Myrna Melgar said Benioff's comments about the National Guard and Trump "shocked me." She said billionaires may shift their political stance for selfish business reasons.
Representative Matt Haney, D-California, said,"You can't support San Francisco and want to see us invaded. Misunderstanding Trump's misleading economic policies is one thing. Supporting direct attacks on and occupation of our cities is another matter."
San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins was angry at Benioff's remarks that he wanted troops to enter San Francisco. She said,"San Franciscans are now fidgeting, afraid that we are the next target Trump will impose on other cities across the country. I am disappointed that anyone wants to introduce this chaos into our city."
Salesforce's annual conference Dreamforce will be held in San Francisco this week. Some liberals are already making preparations and planning to organize protests outside the venue. This is not surprising. In the past two years, the annual conferences of Google, Apple, and Microsoft have all encountered political protests on and off the venue.
Perhaps sensing the controversy caused by those remarks, or perhaps following the advice of the public relations team, Benioff began to actively conduct crisis public relations today.He emphasized that he is a fourth-generation San Francisco native who loves and believes in the future of his hometown and hopes to work together to ensure the safety of San Francisco. Later, he said he would personally donate another $100 million to San Francisco Children's Hospital.
On the other hand, Benioff also made great efforts to San Francisco Mayor Luri. He emphasized that after the new mayor took office this year, he has vigorously increased police force, pushing the city's crime rate down by 30%, and praised San Francisco for moving in the right direction. Benioff announced that Salesforce will donate $1 million to increase police recruitment in San Francisco and provide an additional 200 police officers to ensure security at the Dreamforce conference.
Of course, the most important sincerity must be investment to create jobs. Benioff announced that Salesforce will invest $15 billion in San Francisco over the next five years to build a new artificial intelligence incubator center and help companies adopt artificial intelligence agents to support the city's artificial intelligence innovation and workforce development.
But it must be mentioned that Salesforce has laid off more than 10,000 people this year due to extensive use of AI tools and improved work efficiency. While announcing the layoffs, Benioff coldly said that AI has completed 30% to 50% of the company's work and no longer needs so many people. This is the most exciting moment in his career.
Perhaps this is the complete aspect of a Silicon Valley business leader: on the one hand, he donated generously to solve people's livelihood issues, on the other hand, he actively popularized AI and laid off people's employees in a cold and massive manner; he may have been the Democratic Party's fund-raiser before, but now he can quickly turn around and become a good friend of the new president.
This is true for Bezos, this is true for Zuckerberg, and of course Benioff is no exception.