More Salesforce ICE protests at Dreamforce; buyers remain unmoved
At Dreamforce, Silicon Valley reality distortion is hard to miss as Salesforce celebrates nonprofits and NGOs inside while protesters outside demand it cut ICE ties.
"You don't have to keep doing this," an ex-Salesforce employee said to a current Salesforce employee walking into Dreamforce. "I left the company, and you can, too."
This extraordinary scene took place in San Francisco last week, in the hours leading up to the Tuesday keynote at Salesforce's biggest user conference, where CEO Marc Benioff claimed there were 53,000 attendees.
The ex-Salesforcer was handing out flyers for his group, Bay Resistance, which was protesting Salesforce's ties to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and calling on the company to sign a democracy pledge opposing efforts to block elected candidates, restrict voting and prevent eligible votes from being counted.
About 100 people at 4th and Howard Streets held signs, sang songs, cranked music over the loudspeakers, shouted and, in general, caused a tense-but-joyous, San Francisco-style circus as Dreamforce attendees walked through the nearby metal detectors.
"Our elections and our communities are under attack," said the flyer.
"Corporations must break their silence and speak out to ensure every vote is counted in this election, that every duly elected official is seated, and that we end this violence against families and children being seized by ICE.… Salesforce has an opportunity to use its influence to defend democracy, refuse to profit from family separation, and to push the tech industry to follow."
Protesters outside Dreamforce called on Salesforce to end its business involving U.S. immigration enforcement.
Salesforce has worked with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) since 2018. While CBP and ICE are distinct agencies, they operate within a highly coordinated Department of Homeland Security enforcement framework, and share technology such as interagency databases. More recently, Salesforce has faced employee opposition over reported pitches for ICE business.
Employees have expressed concerns that its AI platform will be used to recruit ICE agents, onboard them, scale operational capacity and vet tip-line calls.
Protests outside, nonprofits celebrated inside
Back in 1981, co-opting a phrase from "Star Trek," an Apple programmer famously said that Steve Jobs had a "reality distortion field" surrounding him. Exactly that was happening once again at Dreamforce when it comes to ICE, in whose custody 23 people have died so far in 2026, following 33 in 2025. Those figures don't include people killed by federal immigration agents outside detention.
"[We have] 65,000 nonprofits and [non-governmental organizations] running our service for free!" Benioff said during his keynote an hour or so later. "This is where I get to say, if you are with a nonprofit or NGO and you are here at the conference, will you stand up and be recognized, please?"
People scattered all over the main hall rose to enthusiastic applause.
"Amazing!" Benioff said. "This is the opportunity for our commercial customers to realize that nonprofits and NGOs do not have as many resources as our commercial customers. Please support them and help them."
Benioff used to be a progressive, calling out fellow Silicon Valley CEOs on issues such as environmental conservation and addressing homelessness. Back in 2019, ICE protesters interrupted a kinder, gentler Benioff during his Dreamforce keynote. He gave them 30 seconds to state their case and then thanked them for sharing before security ushered them out.
Lately, though, Benioff has shown a different public posture, including warmer engagement with President Trump and members of his administration, among them former Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Meanwhile, Salesforce says Missionforce, its government and defense business, continues to expand. Across its government business, Salesforce supports more than 30 countries, 60 U.S. federal agencies, all 50 states and all six branches of the U.S. military. Its defense-sector business has grown 80% year over year, according to the company.
When asked if the ICE protests complicate his job at all, Paul Tatum, Missionforce executive vice president of global public sector solutions, said no, they don't.
"Ultimately, we are serving the needs of government -- they are working with our partners and with our product teams to do the workflows of government," Tatum said. "Taking care of citizen services [such as Salesforce customer Texas DPS] -- they've struggled with their reputation and brand, and here they are, modernizing."
Ultimately, we are serving the needs of government.
Paul TatumExecutive vice president of global public sector solutions, Salesforce
Customers, partners mum
Their own feelings about Salesforce's ties to ICE notwithstanding, two execs at different Salesforce global partners -- whose names are withheld to avoid repercussions at work -- both shrugged it off as a "geopolitical" issue that might, but probably won't, complicate deals. If it does, the blast radius will be confined to the U.S. market.
R "Ray" Wang, founder of Constellation Research and avowed free-market capitalist, said that anyone who would let political issues affect a vendor choice isn't making a sound business decision.
"Dreamforce is one of the biggest events in the city. It's a place for people to get attention. This is the U.S. -- you should be able to protest anything you like," Wang said.
"At the end of the day, you buy from companies you believe in. If you're worried about a contract with ICE stopping you from buying something, then that's your own fault. Every company has a right to choose what they want, but please don't force anyone to do something because you don't like it."
That leaves an unresolved business question: whether growing protests or Salesforce's expanding government work will eventually begin to affect enterprise buying and partner relationships. At this year's Dreamforce, however, there was little evidence that the controversy had affected enterprise buying.
The bottom line
Toward the end of Dreamforce, I checked in with a professional acquaintance, a Latina middle manager at a large Salesforce partner. Her company does business with most, if not all, of the big Silicon Valley players.
I lamented to her that I couldn't get many people on the record saying anything -- pro or con -- about the ICE protest or its potential effect on Salesforce's reputation and business. It seemed as if it was dangerous or subversive to throw sunshine on this issue. Surely most people had to take a side.
But no one was talking.
"It's not just Salesforce," she said, her tone landing somewhere between exhaustion and disgust. "I think it's just corporate America."
Don Fluckinger is a seasoned B2B technology journalist with more than 30 years of experience specializing in enterprise IT, digital experience and content management. As a senior news writer at Informa TechTarget, he delivers award-winning analysis that helps IT and business leaders navigate complex technologies to enhance customer and employee experiences. Got a tip?Email him.
