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 Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, the headquarters of Salesforce | |
| Formerly | Salesforce.com, Inc. (1999–2022) |
|---|---|
| Company type | Public |
| Industry | |
| Founded | March 8, 1999; 26 years ago (1999-03-08) |
| Founders |
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| Headquarters | Salesforce Tower San Francisco, California, U.S. |
Key people |
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| Services | Cloud computing |
| Revenue |  US$37.89 billion (2025) |
| US$7.205 billion (2025) | |
| US$6.197 billion (2025) | |
| Total assets | US$102.9 billion (2025) |
| Total equity | US$61.17 billion (2025) |
Number of employees | 76,453 (2025) |
| Subsidiaries |
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| ASN | |
| Website | salesforce.com |
| Footnotes / references Financials as of January 31, 2025[update].[1] | |
Salesforce, Inc. is an Americancloud-based software company headquartered inSan Francisco, California. It provides applications focused onsales,customer service,marketing automation,e-commerce,analytics,artificial intelligence,agentic AI, and application development.
Founded by formerOracle executiveMarc Benioff in March 1999, Salesforce grew quickly, making itsinitial public offering in 2004. As of September 2025, Salesforce is the61st largest company in the world by market cap with a value of nearly US$238 billion.[2] It became the world's largest enterprise applications firm in 2022.[3] Salesforce ranked 491st on the 2023 edition of theFortune 500, making $31.352 billion in revenue.[4] Since 2020, Salesforce has also been a component of theDow Jones Industrial Average; it is the youngest company in the index.[5]
Salesforce was founded on March 8, 1999, by formerOracle executiveMarc Benioff, together with Parker Harris, Dave Moellenhoff, and Frank Dominguez as asoftware-as-a-service (SaaS) company.[6][7][8] The first prototype of Salesforce was launched in November 1999.[8]
Two of Salesforce's earliest investors wereLarry Ellison, the co-founder and first CEO ofOracle, andHalsey Minor, the founder ofCNET.[7]
Salesforce was severely affected by thedot-com bubble bursting at the beginning of the new millennium, resulting in the company laying off 20% of its workforce. Despite its losses, Salesforce continued strong during the early 2000s. Salesforce also gained notability during this period for its "the end of software" tagline and marketing campaign, and even hired actors to hold up signs with its slogan outside aSiebel Systems conference.[9] Salesforce's revenue continued to increase, moving from $5.4 million in 2000 to $22.4 million in 2001.[10][11]
In 2003, Salesforce held its first annualDreamforce conference in San Francisco.[12] There were around 1300 attendees and 50 exhibitors at the conference.[13]
In June 2004, the company had itsinitial public offering on theNew York Stock Exchange under the stock symbol CRM and raised US$110 million.[14][15] In 2006, Salesforce launched Idea Exchange, a platform that allows customers to connect with company product managers.[16]
In 2009, Salesforce passed $1 billion in annual revenue.[7] Also, in 2009, the company launched Service Cloud, an application that helps companies manage service conversations about their products and services.[17]
In 2014, the company released Trailhead, a free online learning platform.[18] In October 2014, Salesforce announced the development of its Customer Success Platform.[19] In September 2016, Salesforce announced the launch of Einstein, an artificial intelligence platform that supports several of Salesforce's cloud services.[20][21] It reportedly acquired a 20-year license to be the exclusive business-oriented software company allowed to useAlbert Einstein's likeness for $20 million.[22]
Salesforce launched the Sustainability Cloud (Net Zero Cloud as of 2022), which is used by companies to track progress towards achieving theirnet zero emissions goals.[23]
In 2020, Salesforce joined theDow Jones Industrial Average, replacing energy giant andStandard Oil-descendantExxonMobil.[24] Salesforce's ascension to the Dow Jones was concurrent with that ofAmgen andHoneywell.[5] Because the Dow Jones factors its components by market price, Salesforce was the largest technology component of the index at its accession.[25]
Across 2020 and 2021, Salesforce saw some notable leadership changes; in February 2020, co-chief executive officer Keith Block stepped down from his position in the company.[26]Marc Benioff remained as chairman and chief executive officer.[27] In February 2021, Amy Weaver, previously the chief legal officer, became CFO. Former CFO Mark Hawkins announced that he would be retiring in October.[28][29] In November 2021,Bret Taylor was named vice chair and co-CEO of the company.[30]
In December 2020, it was announced that Salesforce would acquireSlack for $27.7 billion, its largest acquisition to date.[31] The acquisition closed in July 2021.[32] Journalists covering the acquisition emphasized the price Salesforce paid for Slack, which was a 54% premium compared to Slack's market value.[33][better source needed]
In April 2022, "Salesforce.com, Inc." changed its legal name to "Salesforce, Inc."[34]
Acceleration Economy reported that Salesforce had surpassed SAP to become the world's largest enterprise software vendor in August 2022.[3]
The next month, Salesforce announced a partnership withMeta Platforms. The deal called for Meta's consumer applicationWhatsApp to integrate Salesforce's Customer 360 platform to allow consumers to communicate with companies directly.[35]
In November 2022, Salesforce announced it would terminate some employees from its sales team.[36] That same month, Salesforce announced its co-CEO and vice chair, Bret Taylor, would be stepping down from his roles at the end of January 2023, with Benioff continuing to run the company and serve as board chair. Within the week, formerTableau CEO Mark Nelson and formerSlack CEOStewart Butterfield also announced their departures. When asked about the departures, Benioff stated, "people come and people go"; Salesforce's stock dropped to a 52-week low after Nelson's resignation.[37][38][39][40]
In January 2023, the company announced alayoff of about 10%, or approximately 8,000 positions. According to Benioff, the company hired too aggressively during theCOVID-19 pandemic and the increase in working from home led to the layoff. The company also reduced office space as part of the restructuring plan.[41] The same month brought an announcement fromactivist investorElliott Management that it would acquire a "big stake" in the company.[42]
In January 2024, Salesforce announced it was laying off 700 employees (about 1%) of its global staff.[43]
In October 2025, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff declared his avid support of theDonald Trump and urged him to deploy theNational Guard to San Francisco as Trump wasdeploying federal troops to other cities.[44] The comments generated significant controversy for Benioff and Salesforce,[45] including push-back from San Francisco mayorDaniel Lurie and District AttorneyBrooke Jenkins[46] and the resignation ofRon Conway from the Salesforce Foundation board.[47] Benioff subsequently apologized for his National Guard comments.[48] That same month, Salesforce pitched theTrump administration on ways that Salesforce's AI tools could helpImmigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) triple its staff to support the administration'smass deportation campaign.[49] The company had previously contracted for ICE under the Obama and Biden administrations.[49]
Salesforce offers severalcustomer relationship management (CRM) services, including: Sales Cloud,[50] Service Cloud,[51]Marketing Cloud,[52] and Commerce Cloud and Platform.[52] Additional technologies includeSlack.
Other services include app creation,data integration and visualization, and training.[53]
Salesforce launched a suite of features called Salesforce Foundations in September 2024, bundling connected functionality across department-specific Sales Cloud and Service Cloud products.[54]
Launched at Dreamforce in 2016, Salesforce Einstein was the company's first artificial intelligence product, developed from a set of technologies underlying the Salesforce platform.[55]
In March 2023, Salesforce announcedChatGPT integration in Slack was available to any organization, and the launch of Einstein GPT, a generative AI service.[56]
In March 2024, Salesforce launched Einstein Copilot: Health Actions, a conversation assistant based on its earlier artificial intelligence platform Einstein. It helps with making appointments, referrals, and gathering patient information.[57] In July, Salesforce released an AI agent, the Einstein Service Agent, with the ability to perform customer service actions, like enabling product returns or refunds.[58]
In September 2024, the company deployed Agentforce (succeeding Salesforce Einstein), anagentic AI platform where users can create autonomous agents for customer service assistance, developing marketing campaigns, and coaching salespersons.[59][60][61]
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff stated in a June 2025 interview onThe Circuit that artificial intelligence now performs between 30% and 50% of internal work at Salesforce, including functions such as software engineering, customer service, marketing, and analytics.[62] Although he made clear that "humans still drive the future," Benioff noted that AI is enabling the company to reassign employees into higher-value roles rather than reduce headcount.[63]
Salesforce Platform (formerly known as Force.com) is aplatform as a service (PaaS) that allows developers to add applications to the main Salesforce.com application.[64][failed verification] These applications are hosted on Salesforce.com infrastructure.[65]
Force.com applications are built using Apex, a proprietaryJava-like programming language[66] to generateHTML originally via the "Visualforce" framework. Beginning in 2015[67] the "Lightning Components" framework has been supported. The Apex language and compiler was initially designed by Craig Weissman.[68]
As of 2014, the Force.com platform had 1.5 million registered developers according to Salesforce.[69]
Launched in 2005, the Salesforce AppExchange is an onlineapp store that allows users to sell third-party applications and consulting services.[70][71]
Launched in 2014, Trailhead is a free online learning platform with courses focused on Salesforce technologies.[72][73][18]
Desk.com was aSaaShelp desk andcustomer support product acquired by Salesforce for $50 million in 2011,[74][75] and consolidated with other services into Service Cloud Essentials in March 2018.[76]
Do.com was a cloud-basedtask management system for small groups and businesses, introduced in 2011, and discontinued in 2014.[77][78][79]
Salesforce is headquartered inSan Francisco in theSalesforce Tower.[80] Salesforce has 110 offices, including ones in Hong Kong, Israel,London,Paris,Sydney andTokyo.[81][82]
Standard & Poor's added Salesforce to theS&P 500 Index in September 2008.[83] In August 2020,S&P Dow Jones Indices announced that Salesforce would replaceExxonMobil in theDow Jones Industrial Average.[24]
According to Marc Benioff, Salesforce corporate culture is based on the concept ofOhana.[84]
In 2021, Cynthia Perry, a design research senior manager, resigned, allegingdiscrimination in the workplace and posting her resignation letter onLinkedIn.[85]
On September 10, 2021, Benioff tweeted that the company is prepared to help any employee who wishes to move out of the state ofTexas, followingabortion legislation in Texas, announced on September 1, 2021.[86]
For the fiscal year 2022, Salesforce reported revenue of US$26.49 billion, an increase of 25% year-over-year and 24% in constant currency.[87] Salesforce ranked 126 on the 2022 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States companies by revenue.[88]
| Year[89] | Revenue US$ millions | Net income US$ millions | Total Assets US$ millions | Price per Share US$ | Employees |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | 176 | 7 | 280 | 5.19 | 767 |
| 2006 | 310 | 28 | 435 | 8.62 | 1,304 |
| 2007 | 497 | 0 | 665 | 11.69 | 2,070 |
| 2008 | 749 | 18 | 1,090 | 13.43 | 2,606 |
| 2009 | 1,077 | 43 | 1,480 | 11.37 | 3,566 |
| 2010 | 1,306 | 81 | 2,460 | 24.21 | 3,969 |
| 2011 | 1,657 | 64 | 3,091 | 32.93 | 5,306 |
| 2012 | 2,267 | −12 | 4,164 | 35.73 | 7,785 |
| 2013 | 3,050 | −270 | 5,529 | 45.94 | 9,800 |
| 2014 | 4,071 | −232 | 9,153 | 57.26 | 13,300 |
| 2015 | 5,374 | −263 | 10,665 | 70.66 | 16,000 |
| 2016 | 6,667 | −47 | 12,763 | 74.55 | 19,000 |
| 2017 | 8,392 | 180 | 17,585 | 90.26 | 25,000 |
| 2018 | 10,480 | 127 | 21,010 | 132.21 | 29,000 |
| 2019 | 13,282 | 1,110 | 30,737 | 155.10 | 35,000 |
| 2020 | 17,098 | 126 | 55,126 | 222.40 | 49,000 |
| 2021 | 21,252 | 4,072 | 66,301 | 255.33 | 56,606 |
| 2022 | 26,492 | 1,444 | 95,209 | 132.59 | 73,541 |
| 2023 | 31,352 | 208 | 98,849 | 79,390 | |
| 2024 | 34,857 | 4,136 | 99,823 | 72,682 | |
| 2025 | 37,895 | 6,197 | 102,928 | 76,453 |
In 2008, Salesforce migrated fromSun Fire E25K servers withSPARC processors runningSolaris, toDell servers withAMD processors, running Linux.[90]
In 2012, Salesforce announced plans to build adata center in the UK to handle European citizens' personal data.[91] The center opened in 2014.[92]
In 2013, Salesforce and Oracle announced a nine-year partnership focusing on applications, platforms, and infrastructure.[93]
In 2016, Salesforce announced that it will useAmazon Web Services hosting for countries with restrictive data residency requirements and where no Salesforce data centers are operating.[94]
In 2006, Salesforce acquired Sendia, a mobile web service firm, for $15 million[95] and Kieden, an online advertising company.[96] In 2007, Koral, a content management service, was acquired.[97] In 2008, Salesforce acquired Instranet for $31.5 million.[98] In 2010, Salesforce acquired multiple companies, including Jigsaw, a cloud-based data service provider, for $142 million,[99]Heroku, a Ruby application platform-as-a-service, for $212 million,[100] and Activa Live Chat, a live chat software provider.[101] In 2011, Salesforce acquiredDimdim, a web conferencing platform, for $31 million,[102] Radian6, a social media tracking company, for $340 million,[103] and Rypple, a performance management software company.[104] Rypple became known as Work.com in 2012.[105] In 2012, Salesforce acquired Buddy Media, a social media marketer, for $689 million,[106] and GoInstant, a browser collaboration startup, for $70 million.[107]
In 2013, Salesforce acquired ExactTarget, an email marketer, for $2.5 billion.[108] In 2014, Salesforce acquiredRelateIQ, a data company, for $390 million.[109] In 2015, Salesforce acquired multiple companies for undisclosed sums, including Toopher, a mobile authentication company,[110]Tempo, an AI calendar app,[111] and MinHash, an AI platform.[112] The company also acquired SteelBrick, a software company, for $360 million.[113]
In 2016, Salesforce acquiredDemandware, a cloud-based provider of e-commerce services, for $2.8 billion[114][115] andQuip, a word processing app, for $750 million.[116] In 2017, the company acquired Sequence, a user experience design agency.[117] In 2018, Salesforce acquired several companies, includingMuleSoft, a cloud service company, for $6.5 billion,[118][119] as well as Rebel, an email services provider,[120] and Datorama, an AI marketing platform.[121]
In 2019, Salesforce completed its acquisition of analytics software companyTableau for $15.7 billion[122] in 2019, andSlack Technologies for $27.7 billion in 2021.[123] Salesforce also made smaller acquisitions between 2019 and 2021, includingClickSoftware for $1.35 billion,[124] consulting firm Acumen Solutions for $570 million,[125] CRM firm Vlocity for $1.33 billion,[26] privacy compliance startup Phennecs for $16.5 million,[126] and robotic process automation firm Servicetrace.[127]
Salesforce's acquired Slack-bot maker Troops.ai in July 2022.[128][129]
In September 2023, Salesforce acquired Airkit.ai, a creator of AI-powered customer service applications and experiences.[130] In December 2023, Salesforce acquired Spiff, an automated commission management platform.[131]
In September 2024, Salesforce acquired data management firm Own for $1.9 billion,[132] and enterprise management platform Zoomin.[133] Salesforce has also acquired PredictSpring and Tenyx in 2024.[134]
In June 2025, Salesforce announced plans to acquire data management platformInformatica for about $8 billion. It had initially been in talks to purchase the company the prior year, but the two parties were unable to agree on terms.[135]
In November 2007, aphishing attack compromised contact information on a number of Salesforce customers. Some customers then received phishing emails that appeared to be invoices from Salesforce.[136][137] Salesforce stated that "a phisher tricked someone into disclosing a password, but this intrusion did not stem from a security flaw in [the salesforce.com]software ordatabase."[136]
On April 13, 2022,GitHub notified Salesforce/Heroku of malicious activity.Heroku determined a threat actor used a stolen OAuth token tied to an internal machine account to access adatabase storing customer GitHub integrationOAuth tokens, prompting token revocations and other containment actions.[138][139][140]
Modified Data Loader /Vishing - UNC6040threat actors executed asocial engineering (security) campaign in which employees were persuaded to install a tampered version of Salesforce Data Loader. TheTrojan horse (computing) client functioned as amalware dropper, enabling credential theft, unauthorized access, and large-scale data exfiltration, which was subsequently used for extortion against multiple organizations. Salesforce confirmed the campaign abused user trust andvishing techniques, clarifying that no vulnerability in the Salesforce platform itself was exploited.[141][142][143][144]
UNC6395[145]threat actors compromisedOAuth and refresh tokens through theSalesloft-Drift integration, enabling unauthorized access to Salesforce customer instances for data theft and extortion. According to Google's Threat Intelligence Group, attackers engaged in widespread theft ofOAuth tokens via theSalesloft-Drift app to exfiltrate sensitive corporate data, including cloud secrets.[146] In response, Salesforce andSalesloft revoked all affected Drift tokens and removed theapplication software from AppExchange pending investigation.[147][148][149]
In 2017, two Salesforce security engineers were fired after giving a presentation atDEF CON discussing a Salesforcepentesting framework called MEATPISTOL.[150] MEATPISTOL was a Salesforce-developed exploit framework similar to (and named after)Metasploit. Salesforce had previously planned toopen source the framework, but changed plans just before the presentation, and fired them immediately afterward[150] The presenters were sent a message half an hour before the presentation telling them to cancel the talk, but they did not see the message until afterward.[150][151] The terminated employees called on the company toopen-source thesoftware after being dismissed.[152]
Thenot-for-profit organizationRefugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES) rejected a US$250,000 donation from Salesforce because the company has contracts withU.S. Customs and Border Protection.[153]
In December 2019, theInstitute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that Salesforce was one of 91 companies who "paid an effective federal tax rate of 0% or less" in 2018, as a result of theTax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. Their findings were published in a report based on the 379Fortune 500 companies that declared a profit in 2018.[154]
In March 2019, Salesforce faced a lawsuit by 50 anonymous women claiming to be victims and survivors ofsex trafficking, abuse, and rape, alleging the company profited from and helped build technology that facilitated sex trafficking on the now-defunctBackpage.com.[155] In March 2021, a judge granted partial dismissal of the case, dismissing charges of negligence and conspiracy, but allowed the case to proceed regarding charges of sex trafficking.[156] In March 2024, the case was dismissed without prejudice.[157] In September 2024, theUS Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit denied a request to reverse the dismissal.[158]
 | This section needs to beupdated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(March 2023) |
In July 2021,Salesforce Japan faced a discrimination lawsuit from a former employee, according to Japanese legal media.[159] The firm declined to comment on the suit to the media. The ex-employee, who isautistic withADHD, claimed she was discriminated against because of her disability and terminated in the firm's Japanese web marketing team.The suit alleged that the anonymous woman, as an employee at Salesforce Japan from 2018 to 2020, facedhate speech,microaggressions and rejection ofreasonable accommodation from the manager. She alleged that her attempts to resolve the problem were met with pressure from HR and job coach. The lawsuit is still continuing in Tokyo district court.[160][161]
In Japan, the legal disability quota for private companies is 2.3%. But Salesforce Japan has not met the quota and pay levy from 2009 to 2021, with the exception of 2017. In 2020, the firm did not report the number of disabled employees to Japanese labor official. Depending on the result of lawsuit, it is undeniable that the firm may face a risk of negative impact to disability hiring such as performance improvement plan on the disability employment act or disclosure as social punishment from the labor official.[162]
In January 2023, Salesforce reported that 8,000 employees had been laid off as a result of over-hiring during theCOVID-19 lockdowns and a global economic downturn. In March 2023, theWall Street Journal reported that actorMatthew McConaughey was paid 10 million dollars yearly for his role as a "creative advisor and TV pitchman". American musicianwill.i.am was also cited to be on the company's payroll due to his "strong understanding of technology".[163][164]
In September 2024, former Salesforce Senior Director Dina Zelikson filed a lawsuit against the company inSan Francisco Superior Court, alleging wrongful termination, discrimination, and retaliation during a medical leave.[165]
In September 2025, Benioff drew criticism after announcing that Salesforce had eliminated approximately 4,000 customer service roles following the deployment of AI-powered support agents. Speaking onThe Logan Bartlett Show podcast, he said the company reduced its support workforce from 9,000 to about 5,000 employees because he "need[ed] less heads." Salesforce stated that AI agents now handle half of all customer interactions and have reduced support costs by 17% since early 2025. The decision contrasted with Benioff's earlier remarks suggesting that artificial intelligence would augment, rather than replace, white-collar workers. Critics pointed to the layoffs as evidence of an industry-wide trend of replacing human jobs with automation, similar to workforce reductions at Microsoft and Klarna.[166]
In 2009, Salesforce began investing in startups.[167] These investments became Salesforce Ventures, headed by John Somorjai[167][168] In September 2014, SFV set up Salesforce1 Fund, aimed at start-ups creating applications primarily for mobile phones.[169] In December 2018, Salesforce Ventures announced the launch of the Japan Trailblazer Fund, focused on Japanese startups.[170]
In August 2018, Salesforce Ventures reported investments totaling over $1 billion in 275 companies, including CloudCraze (e-commerce),[171]Figure Eight (artificial intelligence),[172]Forter (online fraud prevention),[173] andFinancialForce (automation software).[174] In 2019, SFV's five largest investments—Domo (data-visualization software),SurveyMonkey (online survey software),Twilio (cloud-communication),Dropbox (cloud storage), andDocuSign (secure e-signature company)—accounted for nearly half of its portfolio.[175] In 2021, Salesforce announced that its investments had resulted in $2.17 Billion annual gain.[176] In June 2023 Salesforce increased the size of its Generative AI Fund for startups from $250 million to $500 million,[177] and in September 2024 to $1 billion.[178]
To date, Salesforce Venture has invested $5 billion in companies based in 27 different countries.[179]
Salesforce's venture-capital arm also invested in the deal.
the company's five largest public investments account for $505 million
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