US President Donald Trump has reversed a planned federal deployment to San Francisco after receiving late-night phone calls from two of Silicon Valley’s most powerful executives, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff.
The decision marks a dramatic about-face for Trump, who had as recently as Sunday vowed to “surge” into the city with federal agents and National Guard troops, claiming San Francisco had “gone woke” over the past 15 years.
Tech titans persuade Trump to stand down
In a Truth Social post Thursday morning, Trump acknowledged that “friends of mine who live in the area called last night to ask me not to go forward with the surge,” specifically naming Huang and Benioff among those who reached out.
The President explained that these tech leaders spoke highly of Mayor Daniel Lurie’s progress in addressing crime and revitalizing the city.
Lurie, who took office earlier this year after ousting the incumbent, confirmed he received a phone call from Trump late Wednesday evening during which the president “clearly” stated he was canceling federal deployment plans.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem reaffirmed this directive in a subsequent conversation Thursday morning.
The intervention proved successful just as federal forces were assembling at a Coast Guard facility in the Bay Area, with roughly 100 Customs and Border Protection agents reportedly prepared to conduct operations across the region.
Lurie had carefully avoided provoking Trump throughout the escalating situation, instead emphasizing San Francisco’s improving trajectory, touting returning visitors, leased buildings, and workers coming back to offices.
While welcoming potential partnerships with federal agencies like the FBI and DEA on drug enforcement, the mayor firmly stated that “having the military and militarized immigration enforcement in our city will hinder our recovery”.
Benioff’s controversial role in the episode
The cancellation follows weeks of turmoil surrounding Benioff’s shifting political stance.
The Salesforce CEO sparked fierce backlash earlier this month when he told The New York Times he supported Trump’s threats to deploy National Guard troops to San Francisco, stating, “We don’t have enough cops, so if they can be cops, I’m all for it”.
His comments, made ahead of the company’s annual Dreamforce conference, represented a stark departure from his previous progressive positions, he had once hosted fundraisers for Hillary Clinton and supported a 2018 ballot measure to tax wealthy individuals to fund homeless services.
The controversy prompted prominent Silicon Valley investor Ron Conway to resign from the Salesforce Foundation board, writing in an email to Benioff that “I now barely recognize the person I have so long admired”.
California Governor Gavin Newsom and other Democratic leaders swiftly rejected the idea of federal troops, noting San Francisco’s declining crime rates.
Benioff subsequently issued an apology on October 17, stating he no longer believed the National Guard was needed and expressing regret for “the concern it caused”.
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