Salesforce’s Benioff Spars With Twitter’s Dorsey Over Support for Homeless

Salesforce.com Inc. Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff gave fellow San Francisco corporate titan Jack Dorsey a piece of his mind on Twitter Friday. Benioff is one of the few tech leaders willing to criticize his own so openly.

On Twitter, Benioff questioned Dorsey’s commitment to combating the city’s homeless crisis and drew attention to tax breaks that he said Dorsey’s companies, Twitter Inc. and Square Inc., got for putting their offices on Market Street, a main San Francisco thoroughfare that is a nexus of poverty and urban renewal. (Square’s address is excluded from the tax break, according to the city).

Earlier this week, Benioff came out in support of a corporate tax increase that could double San Francisco’s budget to fight its rampant homeless problem. Benioff committed $1 million to campaign for a San Francisco ballot initiative called “Proposition C.” The initiative proposes an additional tax of at least 0.175 percent on businesses’ gross receipts above $50 million. Half of the money for Benioff’s campaign will come from Salesforce’s corporate coffers and the other half from Benioff himself, he told the San Francisco Chronicle.

San Francisco’s mayor, London Breed, and the city’s Chamber of Commerce oppose ballot initiative. Dorsey tweeted out his opposition to Proposition C on Friday.