Salesforce Employees Urge CEO to Condemn ICE Actions
Written by Emily J. Thompson, Senior Investment Analyst
Updated: Feb 11 2026
0mins
Should l Buy CRM?
Source: Benzinga
- Employee Advocacy: Salesforce employees are urging CEO Marc Benioff to publicly condemn the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) while calling for a ban on the use of Salesforce software by immigration agents, highlighting a growing concern for the company's ethical responsibilities.
- Critique of ICE: The letter emphasizes Benioff's unique influence in Washington, urging him to leverage this to issue a public statement condemning ICE's conduct and to establish clear prohibitions against the use of Salesforce's cloud and AI products for state violence, reflecting a strong stance on ethical product usage.
- Workforce Reductions: In September 2025, Salesforce cut 4,000 customer support roles, reducing its support workforce from 9,000 to 5,000 employees, indicating a strategic shift towards AI integration and a reallocation of human resources in response to technological advancements.
- Stock Performance: Salesforce's stock has declined by 40.37% over the past year, although it saw a slight increase of 0.30% to close at $193.45 on Tuesday, indicating ongoing market concerns regarding the company's future performance and stability.
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Analyst Views on CRM
Wall Street analysts forecast CRM stock price to rise
39 Analyst Rating
29 Buy
9 Hold
1 Sell
Moderate Buy
Current: 189.720
Low
223.00
Averages
326.40
High
405.00
Current: 189.720
Low
223.00
Averages
326.40
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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- Free Cash Flow Increase: The company achieved $2.2 billion in free cash flow during Q3, up 22% year-over-year, demonstrating its ability to maintain robust cash flow while integrating AI, thereby enhancing financial stability.
- Revenue Growth Deceleration: Despite a 9% year-over-year revenue growth in Q3, the slowdown from the previous quarter's 9% raises concerns among investors about whether Salesforce's AI offerings might be cannibalizing its core business, potentially impacting stock performance.
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- Shift in SaaS Spending: Mensch predicts that more than half of SaaS spending in IT procurement will shift to AI, indicating a qualitative leap in software development speed, which could put traditional software companies under greater pressure.
- Changing Customer Demands: Mistral AI currently has over 100 enterprise customers looking to replatform their IT systems to enhance efficiency and reduce costs, presenting significant market opportunities for the company.
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- Food Stocks Market Reaction: Despite significant declines in food stocks due to fears surrounding GLP-1, analysts note that while dividends may be attractive, the lack of growth potential limits rebound opportunities, as seen with Conagra Brands.
- AI Market Influence: Comments from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei have sparked widespread discussions about the future of AI, although the justification for the company's $350 billion valuation is questioned, and the impact on companies like Adobe, Workday, and Salesforce may lead to declining valuations.
- Challenges in Data Center Construction: Analysts emphasize that the cost of building data centers must decrease and power supply must be reliable to achieve profitability in the coming years, although they remain optimistic about the long-term prospects for companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet.
See More
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- Agentforce Usage Insights: UBS's channel checks indicate an uptick in Salesforce's Agentforce usage, yet core growth remains 'muted', suggesting that customers show little interest in replacing Salesforce with AI alternatives, reflecting the company's stability in the market.
- Analyst Rating Adjustment: UBS analyst Karl Keirstead lowered Salesforce's price target from $260 to $200 while maintaining a Neutral rating, indicating a cautious outlook on the company's future growth, particularly as core business improvements are not evident.
- Customer Feedback Analysis: Among seven customers consulted, two expressed confidence in Agentforce's capabilities enough to 'materially' reduce customer support headcount, which is a positive signal, yet overall feedback remains balanced, highlighting concerns about Salesforce's core platform.
- Market Spending Trends: Despite Salesforce's claims of recovering bookings, customers appear focused on containing application software spending while prioritizing projects in AI, data, and cybersecurity, indicating challenges for the company's growth potential moving forward.
See More
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- Product Launch: Anthropic's release of Claude Sonnet 4.6 on Tuesday, following closely behind Claude Opus 4.6, creates a significant market impact, leading to pressure on traditional software companies, particularly with Microsoft shares down 18% in 2026.
- Investor Concerns: Investors are increasingly worried that advanced AI agents may render traditional user interfaces and subscription models obsolete, raising questions about the future of the software industry.
- Technological Shift: Anthropic highlighted in a blog post that Sonnet 4.6 can use computers like a human, changing the way users interact with traditional software and reducing the need for bespoke connectors, thereby enhancing automation capabilities.
- Industry Impact: With the launch of Sonnet 4.6, the performance threshold for traditional software tasks has been lowered, allowing economically valuable tasks that previously required Opus-class models to be accomplished with Sonnet 4.6, intensifying market competition.
See More
