Comedians cancel Dreamforce performance after Benioff draws backlash for Trump support

Comedians Kumail Nanjiani and Ilana Glazer dropped out of their performance at Salesforce’s annual technology conference this week after the company’s chief executive, Marc Benioff, made controversial remarks showing his support for President Trump.

Last week, Benioff told the New York Times that he believed Trump should deploy the National Guard to reduce crime in San Francisco, comments that drew backlash from Silicon Valley philanthropists and Democrats.

On Friday, Benioff completely walked back his comments and apologized.

“I do not believe the National Guard is necessary to provide security in San Francisco,” he wrote on the social networking site

Salesforce, a software company based in San Francisco, provides a platform that businesses use to manage customer data and track sales. The company confirmed that the comedians had dropped out, but the artists have not publicly revealed what prompted the last-minute cancellation. A source close to the company told the San Francisco Chronicle that Nanjiani fell ill and that also led Glazer to cancel his scheduled opening match.

Nanjiani and Glazer have not publicly spoken about Benioff’s remarks on the National Guard.

Both comedians, however, have criticized Trump in the past and his anti-immigration rhetoric. Earlier this year, Glazer spoke at a “No Kings” protest, which organizers said was aimed at fighting authoritarian policies pushed by Trump and his administration. This week, she promoted the next round of protests, scheduled for October 18, saying it was not a partisan issue on Instagram.

The San Francisco Standard earlier reported the cancellation.

Benioff has faced growing backlash since making comments about Trump and the National Guard. The controversy overshadowed Dreamforce, a conference in San Francisco featuring high-profile speakers including tech executives, government officials and artists.

Nanjiani played Dinesh in the HBO series “Silicon Valley” and co-wrote and starred in the 2017 Oscar-nominated film “The Big Sick.” Glazer co-created and starred in the Comedy Central series “Broad City” and the 2024 comedy “Babes.”

In their absence, comedian David Spade performed at Dreamforce on Thursday afternoon, closing out the conference.

Before the event, which concluded Thursday, Benioff appeared to walk back his remarks.

On social media site X, he said he was trying to make the conference as safe as possible.

“Keeping San Francisco safe is first and foremost the responsibility of our city and state’s leaders,” he wrote on X. Benioff also said he would give an additional $1 million to fund larger hiring bonuses for new police officers.

Benioff, who has previously said he is an independent and formerly a Republican, has supported Democrats and supported liberal causes such as a business tax for homeless services. But he also criticized public safety in San Francisco and threatened to move Dreamforce from San Francisco to Las Vegas.

The conference attracts nearly 50,000 people to the city, generates $130 million in revenue for San Francisco and creates 35,000 local jobs, according to Salesforce. The company announced earlier this week that it would invest $15 billion in San Francisco over five years to advance artificial intelligence.

Prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist and Democratic donor Ron Conway resigned from the Salesforce Foundation board on Thursday. In an email first seen by The New York Times, Conway told Benioff that he “now barely recognizes the person I have admired for so long.”

“Your constant annual obsession and threats to move Dreamforce to Las Vegas is ironic, because it is a fact that Las Vegas has a higher violent crime rate than San Francisco,” Conway wrote in the email. “San Francisco doesn’t need a federal invasion because you don’t like paying for extra security for Dreamforce.”

Conway, founder and managing partner of SV Angel, is widely considered the “Godfather of Silicon Valley” due to his early investments in major technology companies such as Google, Facebook and PayPal. SV Angel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A Salesforce spokesperson said in a statement that it has “deep gratitude to Ron Conway and his incredible contributions to the Salesforce Foundation Board of Directors for more than a decade.”

On Friday, entrepreneur and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs published an essay in the Wall Street Journal citing some of Benioff’s earlier remarks and arguing that no one had given more to San Francisco. The widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs also founded and runs the philanthropic organization Emerson Collective.

“The message beneath this comment was unequivocal: her “In my eyes, generosity is an auction – and politics is the price awarded to the highest bidder,” she wrote. “But giving that requires control is anything but generous. »