Salesforce employees call on execs to cut ties with NRA
More than 4,000 employees have signed on, detailing in a letter how the NRA uses Salesforce products for marketing and fundraising efforts.
Salesforce employees have asked executives to cease the San Francisco-based software company’s working relationship with the National Rifle Association, after an elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, killed at least 19 children and two teachers this week.
Less than two weeks earlier, a gunman killed 10 Black people in a Buffalo, New York, supermarket in what authorities have called a racially motivated attack.
The Salesforce letter, which was first reported by SFGATE, was addressed to co-CEOs Marc Benioff and Bret Taylor, Chief Financial Officer Amy Weaver and Chief Marketing Officer Sarah Franklin on Wednesday evening.
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Salesforce did not respond to a request for comment last week. On Thursday morning, Benioff tweeted, “How do we protect our 2nd amendment & our kids at the same time? Can we raise our age limit to 21? Can we ban assault weapons? What else?”
More than 4,000 of Salesforce’s 73,000 employees had signed the letter as of Thursday, according to SFGATE. The letter detailed how the NRA uses Salesforce products for marketing and fundraising efforts.
“Based on past history, it is likely the NRA is already upping, or preparing to up, their Marketing Cloud usage in response to this tragedy, not to prevent future tragedies from happening, but to sow fear, sell guns, and abet future atrocities,” the letter read.
In 2019, Salesforce stopped making its sales management software available to retailers that sell automatic and semiautomatic weapons, 3D-printed guns and certain accessories.
In recent years, a number of companies have cut ties or partnerships with the NRA following mass shootings. Following a 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the First National Bank of Omaha, Delta Air Lines, Hertz, Alamo and MetLife announced plans to cut ties with or end discount programs for members of the gun rights advocacy group; in 2019, executives at nearly 150 companies, including Uber, Twitter and Pinterest, sent a letter to Senate leaders demanding the expansion of background checks to all firearms sales and stronger “red flag” laws.
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