Silicon Valley billionaire Marc Benioff wants National Guard deployed to San Francisco

Billionaire tech executive Marc Benioff said he wants President Trump to restore a sense of public safety in San Francisco by sending in the National Guard.

Mr. Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce and owner of Time magazine, suggested the Guard could help the understaffed San Francisco police which he said lacks a presence on city streets.

“We don’t have enough cops, so if they can be cops, I’m all for it,” Mr. Benioff told The New York Times.

Mr. Benioff said he is paying for 200 off-duty cops to patrol downtown San Francisco this week for the Dreamforce 2025 convention. The event expects to draw up to 50,000 attendees.

The billionaire added that the surge in law enforcement for his convention will put “cops on every corner … that’s how it used to be.”

The office of San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, who was elected last year on promises to address crime and public disorder, particularly open drug use, responded to Mr. Benioff’s by touting police hiring plans and a major drop in crime.

“Mayor Lurie launched his Rebuilding the Ranks plan in May to bring our police staffing up to the expert-recommended goal of 2,000 officers. And for the first time in nearly a decade, San Francisco is seeing net gains in both police officers and sheriff’s deputies. Crime is down nearly 30% citywide and at its lowest point in decades.” a spokesperson for the Democratic mayor said Saturday.

Mr. Trump said the Bay Area city is one of the “very unsafe places” that his administration is going to “straighten out” in a speech to top military generals last month.

The president has been pushing to send National Guard troops into Chicago and Portland, Oregon, by arguing both major cities are besieged by criminality.

While federal judges have temporarily delayed those deployments with court orders, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in both cities have faced violent resistance from agitators looking to disrupt their operations.

Last week, federal prosecutors in Chicago charged a man and a woman for ramming their cars into ICE vehicles. Agents shot the woman in return, who suffered non-life threatening injuries.

In Portland, frequent protests outside of the city’s ICE facility have flared up into authorities firing tear gas and pepper balls at the crowds.