Co-founder and chief executive of Salesforce and host of its annual Dreamforce conference.
Case
Jon Ossoff urges inspections, legislation and an AI treaty; Donald Trump says existing federal powers are sufficient. Their opposing positions raise a concrete question: should Washington add safeguards for frontier AI?
Role at the time: Chief executive of Salesforce hosting and interviewing at his company's conference
Statement summary
Benioff drew a warning from social media and called on executives to hold themselves responsible for building safe technology, while saying companies should set the pace of development.
“I hope that we will take those lessons and say that social media is probably just the warm-up for AI. … Let’s hold ourselves responsible as an industry and as executives to make sure that our technology is safe and does the right thing.”
Benioff says companies must be held responsible and should follow existing laws, but places the pace of development with companies rather than government. He neither endorses nor rejects new federal safeguards, so the label is mixed.
Statement dates: September 15, 2026
Statement dates: September 15, 2026
