Salesforce boss Marc Benioff is pitching AI-powered “robo-cops” to help stamp out crime in San Francisco — just days after stunning the city’s political leaders by backing President Trump’s call to send in the National Guard.
The billionaire tech mogul, still fending off fallout from his political U-turn, took the stage at his company’s Dreamforce conference this week and floated the idea that humanoid robots could one day patrol the streets where he once wanted soldiers.
“Do you see this as, that you’d be selling these to SFPD?” Benioff asked Brett Adcock, CEO of San Jose robotics firm Figure AI, as the pair watched a demo on Wednesday of a so-called “synthetic human” cleaning a living room.
““And saying [to the police], ‘Look, you’re down 500 or 1,000 officers. I can offer you robots to do some of these jobs, even if they’re not armed or not militaristic.’ Is that a role that you see them playing in cities?” Benioff said.
Adcock, who has bragged that his company is “building a new species,” dodged the question, insisting his company won’t build machines for “military or defense applications.”
Benioff pushed again — then quipped that “Google also used to say that, by the way.”
If robots become “self-replicating,” he told Adcock on stage at Dreamforce on Wednesday, they can “choose on their own” what they want to do, adding: “Why are you deciding for them?”
Adcock, looking increasingly uneasy, assured the crowd that Figure’s machines won’t be used for harm.
“It’s just not interesting for us,” he said.
The uneasy laughter in the room suggested the audience wasn’t sure if Benioff was joking, according to SFGATE.
The exchange came just days after a New York Times interview in which Benioff, once one of the city’s most liberal benefactors, declared that he “fully support[ed]” Trump and said he was “all for” deploying the National Guard to San Francisco to fight crime.
“We don’t have enough cops, so if they can be cops, I’m all for it,” Benioff told the Times.
The remark landed like a drone strike in a city where the president’s name is rarely uttered aloud.
Mayor Daniel Lurie and District Attorney Brooke Jenkins slammed the idea, noting that crime in San Francisco has plunged to a 70-year low.
“To see tear gas and all the things that are happening — we don’t want that chaos here,” Jenkins said.
“Our job is to maintain order, and the public trusts us to get that job done.”
Benioff later softened his stance, saying his focus was simply on safety as he prepared to host 45,000 visitors at his company’s three-day tech conference called Dreamforce — and pledged $1 million to the SFPD for hiring bonuses.
But instead of steering clear of controversy, he steered straight into sci-fi, musing onstage about robots that could replace human cops entirely.
“It’s definitely out of step and out of touch with what most San Franciscans would want,” San Francisco City Supervisor Myrna Melgar told the Times after Benioff’s earlier remarks about supporting a National Guard deployment in the city.
“You can’t support San Francisco and want to see us invaded,” Assemblyman Matt Haney, a Democrat, told the Times.
“It’s one thing to wrongly support Trump’s misguided economic policies. It’s quite another to support a direct assault and occupation of our city.”
Even as he faced blowback, Benioff has brushed off critics, insisting San Francisco’s biggest problem is too few officers — human or otherwise.
The Post has sought comment from Benioff.
Trump has significantly increased National Guard deployments to major cities, focusing on those led by Democratic mayors, claiming the action is necessary to combat crime and protect federal facilities.
These deployments have prompted legal challenges and sparked political controversies, with critics labeling the strategy a dangerous overreach, while some Republican-led states have welcomed federal support.
