Salesforce Faces Employee Backlash Over ICE Joke and AI Partnership
Written by Emily J. Thompson, Senior Investment Analyst
Updated: 1 day ago
0mins
Should l Buy CRM?
Source: Benzinga
- Internal Protests Escalate: Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff's joke about ICE at the annual leadership event has sparked significant employee backlash, with staff signing a letter demanding he denounce ICE's actions and cease collaboration, highlighting the company's internal focus on ethical responsibility.
- Ethical Technology Controversy: The letter indicates that Salesforce's pitch of Agentforce AI technology to ICE for rapid recruitment is seen as a fundamental betrayal of the company's commitment, potentially damaging its reputation in ethical technology use.
- Stock Price Volatility: While Salesforce shares rose 2.8% to $190.53 on Friday, the stock has fallen 25% year-to-date and 42% over the past 52 weeks, reflecting market concerns about the company's future outlook amid ongoing controversies.
- Increased Industry Pressure: As public discontent with ICE rises, companies like Salesforce face greater scrutiny and must navigate the delicate balance between technological innovation and social responsibility to maintain employee trust and market image.
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Analyst Views on CRM
Wall Street analysts forecast CRM stock price to rise
42 Analyst Rating
31 Buy
10 Hold
1 Sell
Moderate Buy
Current: 185.430
Low
223.00
Averages
326.95
High
405.00
Current: 185.430
Low
223.00
Averages
326.95
High
405.00
About CRM
Salesforce, Inc. is a provider of customer relationship management (CRM) technology. The Company helps organizations of any size reimagine their business for the world of artificial intelligence (AI). With Agentforce, its platform, organizations can bring humans together with AI agents to drive customer success on one deeply unified platform. With the Salesforce platform, it delivers a single source of truth, connecting customer data with integrated AI across systems, apps and devices to help companies sell, service, market and conduct commerce from anywhere. Agentforce is a new layer of the Salesforce platform that enables companies to build and deploy AI agents that can respond to inputs, make decisions and take action autonomously across business functions. Agentforce includes a suite of customizable agents for use across sales, service, marketing and commerce. Datablazer is a data-driven innovator, which leverages the Company’s platform to unlock insights and drive decisions.
About the author
Emily J. Thompson
Emily J. Thompson, a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) with 12 years in investment research, graduated with honors from the Wharton School. Specializing in industrial and technology stocks, she provides in-depth analysis for Intellectia’s earnings and market brief reports.
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- Investor Activity: Notable investor Cathie Wood took advantage of the dip by purchasing $21.6 million in Alphabet shares through her Ark Invest funds on February 5, indicating confidence in the company's future potential despite current market challenges.
- Industry Impact: The rollout of Claude Cowork negatively affected several business software companies, with Salesforce, Intuit, and Atlassian experiencing stock declines of 27.9%, 33%, and 41.6%, respectively, reflecting market fears that AI tools could replace traditional SaaS platforms.
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