“It saddens me immensely to say that with your recent comments, and failure to understand their impact, I now barely recognize the person I have so long admired,” Conway, a top Democratic donor, wrote to Benioff in the email.
Conway was so disturbed by Benioff’s comments that he contacted his longtime friend about them and they discussed the matter over the past few days, according to the email. But Conway did not come away satisfied that Benioff had reflected on the dangers posed by the Trump administration or the impact of his remarks.
“I have expressed candidly to you, repeatedly, in recent days, that I am shocked and disappointed by your comments calling for an unwanted invasion of San Francisco by federal troops,” Conway wrote in the email, “and by your willful ignorance and detachment from the impacts of the ICE immigration raids of families with NO criminal record.”
Benioff is busy running Dreamforce this week—but while he’s previously said San Francisco is “a lot more fun than Vegas,” he’s previously threatened to move the event to Las Vegas, citing safety reasons, according to the Times.
“Your obsession with and constant annual threats to move Dreamforce to Las Vegas is ironic, since it is a fact that Las Vegas has a higher rate of violent crime than San Francisco,” Conway wrote. “San Francisco does not need a federal invasion because you don’t like paying for extra security for Dreamforce.”
Benioff has mostly avoided discussing Trump, ICE, H-1B visas, and immigration during Dreamforce this week—Fortune’s Jeremy Kahn was on the scene, and asked Benioff about this directly—but he said Tuesday that he just cares about everyone’s safety. Salesforce and Benioff did not immediately respond to Fortune‘s request for comment about Conway’s resignation. But in a statement to Fortune, a Salesforce spokesperson offered a measured response to Conway’s resignation, saying, “We have deep gratitude for Ron Conway and his incredible contributions to the Salesforce Foundation Board for over a decade,” noting the company’s all-time giving of $840 million to educational causes and public schools.
