'Gut punch': Liberal billionaire reportedly 'unrecognizable' after caving to Trump

California tech billionaire Marc Benioff, once a staunch supporter of the Democratic Party, has become “unrecognizable” after endorsing President Donald Trump’s National Guard deployments and cozying up to the president, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

Benioff had initially distanced himself from Trump following his 2024 victory, pledging to maintain his company’s core values such as diversity and inclusion. But after he publicly supported Trump’s plan to deploy the National Guard to San Francisco, along with making social media posts congratulating the president, those around him begin to question whether he had caved on his principles.

“Marc Benioff stood out as someone who showed us that San Francisco values and the tech industry could coexist with and amplify each other,” said California state Rep. Matt Haney, a Democrat who represents San Francisco, speaking with the Post. “[That persona is now] unrecognizable.”

Others, like Rafael Mandelman, the president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, described Benioff’s apparent shift towards Trump a “gut punch.” And a message sent in his company’s internal messaging channel sharing a news article that included Benioff’s comments supporting Trump’s National Guard deployments garnered 200 negative reactions from employees using barfing-face emojis, according to a screenshot obtained by the Post.

“This seems to conflict pretty heavily with our values,” an employee at Benioff’s company Salesforce wrote, according to the Post.

While Benioff would eventually walk back his support for Trump’s proposal to deploy the National Guard to San Francisco, he continued to praise him on social media, and last month, joined Trump in Tokyo for dinner.

His relationship with Trump was apparently so strong that the president personally asked Benioff for his recommendation as to who he should replace Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell with, whom Trump has frequently tangled with and floated firing over his refusal to cut interest rates to his liking.

“Marc, do you have a suggestion?” Trump asked Benioff, who owns Time magazine, during the dinner. “You put me on the cover of Time magazine. That was a nice picture. Thank you very much for that.”