Marc Benioff Says Microsoft Shut Salesforce Out Of OpenAI — So He Bet On Anthropic Instead, And It Could Pay 'Tens Of Billions'

• CEO Marc Benioff said Salesforce’s inability to invest in OpenAI helped steer the company toward Anthropic in 2023.
• Salesforce could make “tens of billions” from the Anthropic IPO, Benioff said.
• Strong Agentforce growth and record revenue are helping Salesforce counter concerns that AI agents could disrupt SaaS.

Salesforce, Inc. CEO Marc Benioff said Microsoft's close relationship with OpenAI effectively shut the cloud software provider out of investing in the ChatGPT maker years ago, pushing him to look elsewhere in the frontier AI market and leading to what could become one of his most lucrative bets: Anthropic.

Speaking to Alex Heath on his Sources podcast, Benioff said Salesforce had wanted exposure to OpenAI but ended up backing Anthropic with an initial cheque of $50 million in 2023 at a reported $4.1 billion pre-money valuation. Salesforce has since invested more than $300 million across multiple rounds.

Benioff said he believes Salesforce could potentially make “tens of billions” of dollars from Anthropic when the AI startup goes public. 

From Anthropic Investment To Claude In Slack

That relationship is now moving beyond Salesforce’s investment portfolio and directly into its software. Under the recently expanded Claudeforce partnership, Claude is the default model in Slack, powering Slackbot, while Salesforce workflows and data can be accessed directly through Claude.  

Benioff also defended Salesforce’s $27.7 billion acquisition of Slack, saying the company bought it because it expected AI agents to become the primary interface for business. He said Slack’s adoption inside companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic has helped validate that thesis.

‘SaaSpocalypse’ Waning?

Salesforce was caught in the broader software selloff earlier this year, when fears that increasingly capable AI agents could disrupt traditional SaaS wiped roughly $1 trillion from U.S. software stocks in about a week. Salesforce shares fell sharply during the rout.  

Recent results, however, have provided a stronger backdrop. Salesforce reported record second-quarter revenue of $11.3 billion, up 11%, while Agentforce run-rate exceeded $1.5 billion, up more than 240%. The company also raised its full-year revenue guidance to $46.1 billion-$46.4 billion.  

The results suggest Salesforce is increasingly positioning Anthropic and other AI models not simply as threats to SaaS, but as infrastructure that can help reshape its own software business.

Retail View On CRM

On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment for CRM was ‘bearish,’ unchanged for a week. The stock has fallen for six straight sessions, shedding about 10% over the period and giving back part of its post-earnings bump.

Sentiment was ‘bearish’ for both Anthropic and OpenAI, with traders closely watching for Anthropic’s IPO filing, which is expected soon. Both companies have already confidentially filed their initial registration documents with the markets regulator, according to media reports.

According to Nasdaq Private Market data, OpenAI last had a valuation of $910.14 billion while Anthropic’s was over $1.3 trillion.

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