Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has found himself at the center of a storm after making several jokes about U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during the company’s annual leadership kickoff event in Las Vegas on Tuesday, February 10, 2026. The remarks, made in front of thousands of employees and broadcast across the company, have sparked a wave of internal backlash, reigniting long-standing tensions over Salesforce’s relationship with ICE and its broader stance on social issues.
According to reports from Gazetteer SF, 404 Media, Business Insider, Wired, and KRON, Benioff’s controversial comments came during his opening keynote address. As part of a segment recognizing international employees who had traveled to the United States for the event, Benioff asked those from abroad to stand up. He then quipped, “Just so the ICE agents know,” or, as another attendee recalled, “there are ICE agents in the hall to keep tabs on you.” The crowd’s reaction was immediate and uneasy, with faint boos and groans rippling through the room. One employee summed up the mood in a Slack message: “The room groaned. We couldn’t believe he said that.”
Benioff didn’t stop there. Later in the keynote, he made a second joke about ICE, this time in the context of Salesforce’s internal Slackbot tool, again referencing ICE agents being present. As if to round out the series of offbeat remarks, he also took a jab at Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime performance from the previous Sunday, saying he wasn’t sure what it was about. According to 404 Media, one employee noted, “On its own just seems out of touch, but coupled with the previous joke it does seem worse.”
The fallout was swift and visible. Salesforce’s internal Slack channels lit up with messages of shock, anger, and disappointment. Employees questioned whether they had misheard the CEO, with one writing, “What was the ICE joke?” and another clarifying, “Please stand if you traveled here from abroad! Thank you! Just so the ICE agents know.” Screenshots viewed by Business Insider and KRON showed dozens of messages expressing outrage. One employee wrote, “A joke about ICE surveilling employees’ travel, when there are literally employees afraid to travel for work due to current situation.” Another commented, “It’s hard to believe this company still has values when you make completely off-base jokes about ICE in your opening keynote. That’s unacceptable.” That particular comment received almost 800 emoji reactions in support, showing just how widespread the discontent was.
Some employees said they were “deeply disappointed and uncomfortable that two jokes about ICE were made in the first few minutes of Marc’s opening keynote,” especially after welcoming teammates who traveled from outside the U.S. “Even worse,” one added. Others in the “#airing-of-grievances” Slack channel posted memes, including one of a Nazi officer with the caption “Are we the baddies?” The sentiment was clear: the jokes were not just inappropriate, but also deeply out of step with the company’s professed values of equality and inclusion.
The controversy comes at a particularly sensitive time for Salesforce. The company has recently gone through a series of high-profile executive departures and layoffs, and its contracts and technology pitches to ICE have long been a source of internal debate. According to Wired, Salesforce has pitched its AI technology to ICE to help the agency “expeditiously” hire 10,000 new agents and vet tip-line reports, a move that many employees see as a fundamental betrayal of the company’s stated commitment to the ethical use of technology. The letter circulating internally this week calls on Benioff to denounce ICE’s recent actions, prohibit the use of Salesforce software by immigration agents, and support federal legislation that would significantly reform the agency.
The letter, which references the recent killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis as a catalyst, reads: “Providing ‘Agentforce’ infrastructure to scale a mass deportation agenda that currently detains 66,000 people—73 percent of whom have no criminal record—represents a fundamental betrayal of our commitment to the ethical use of technology.” It urges Benioff to leverage his considerable influence in Washington to issue a public statement condemning what it calls ICE’s unconstitutional conduct and to set clear red lines barring the use of Salesforce’s cloud and AI products for state violence.
Benioff’s political stance has been a moving target in recent years. He supported Hillary Clinton in 2016 and backed Proposition C, a San Francisco ballot measure to fund homelessness programs, but has more recently signaled support for some Republican leaders, including President Donald Trump. Last fall, Benioff told The New York Times that he “fully” supports Trump and even suggested deploying the National Guard to San Francisco, a remark for which he later apologized on X (formerly Twitter). In the same Fortune interview, Benioff joked about donating a photo of Trump on the cover of Time magazine—naming him Person of the Year—instead of contributing to Trump’s inauguration fund, saying, “He can use the Time magazine cover for free.”
This is far from the first time Benioff has faced internal backlash for his comments. After Salesforce announced plans to lay off 10% of its workforce in 2023, Benioff delivered a meandering two-hour talk that employees described as “tone-deaf,” joking about layoffs ruining an executive’s birthday and about being “thrilled” to work from home during the coronavirus pandemic. Each time, the CEO has been forced to reckon with a workforce that expects more sensitivity—and a company culture that aspires to higher ideals.
Salesforce, the largest private employer in San Francisco, has not yet responded to multiple requests for comment from Business Insider and Wired. As of now, the internal letter’s number of signatories remains unclear, but sources say the pushback is more forceful than after Benioff’s previous controversial remarks.
For many at Salesforce, the events of this week are about more than just a poorly timed joke. They reflect deeper anxieties about the company’s direction, its relationship with powerful government agencies, and the gap between its public values and internal reality. Whether Benioff will address the uproar directly—or make meaningful changes in response—remains to be seen. For now, the company’s leadership faces a moment of reckoning, with employees demanding not just words, but action.