Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff went on the offensive Wednesday night, laying out his plan for reversing the company's stock slide: keep delivering for customers and keep buying back shares.
"We're going to keep focusing on our customer success," Benioff said on CNBC's "Mad Money." "We're going to continue to drive our revenue, we're going to continue to deliver tremendous cash flow."
Shares of Salesforce have struggled this year as investors worry that generative AI platforms from companies like Anthropic and OpenAI could upend traditional software providers. The stock slipped another 1.5% in extended trading Wednesday, even after the company posted better-than-expected earnings, because investors focused on guidance that came in below expectations.
Benioff pushed back against what he jokingly called the "Saaspocalypse," pointing to strong revenue and profits in the most recent quarter. "You can see we just had a record quarter," he said. "We've never seen this many large transactions happen."
Rather than slow down during the sell-off, Salesforce has accelerated its share repurchase program. The company has now bought back $27.1 billion worth of its own stock. On the earnings call, CFO Robin Washington said the buybacks reduced Salesforce's diluted share count by 10% year over year and added 23 cents to first-quarter adjusted earnings per share.
Benioff made clear he sees the company's own stock as the best use of capital right now. "We can look around for great opportunities in the market, but Salesforce is probably the greatest," he said. "We are very happy to buy back our stock."
On the AI question, Benioff argued that the technology would strengthen Salesforce rather than hollow it out. He pointed specifically to Slack's integration with tools powered by Anthropic. "That Slack bot is driven by Anthropic," he said. "By building Anthropic now into Slack, we're able to take an incredibly successful product…and give tremendous advice."
Salesforce's stock performance has been one of the more prominent stories in enterprise software this year. The broader concern among investors is whether AI-native competitors can eventually replace the kind of customer relationship management software that Salesforce built its business around. Benioff's argument is that Salesforce will absorb and deploy those tools rather than be replaced by them.
The company's next moves on the buyback front and its AI product roadmap will likely be closely watched as the stock continues to trade well below its recent highs.
