Salesforce Stock Slips After-Hours: Rare Insider Buy Fails To Boost Confidence Amid AI Threat And Ongoing Selloff

• Salesforce insider trades are skewed towards sales, with CEO Marc Benioff and Slack CTO Parker Harris selling massive stakes last year.
• CRM stock is under pressure amid a broader selloff in software companies’ shares over fears that AI would curtail Saas products. 
• Stocktwits sentiment for CRM has remained ‘bearish’ for two weeks.

Salesforce, Inc. (CRM) board member David Blair Kirk purchased just over $500,000 worth of shares in the enterprise software company on Wednesday, marking a rare buy amid dozens of sizable insider sales and the first such purchase this year.

CRM stock posted its second straight session of losses on Wednesday, closing nearly 1% lower at $194.34. Shares further fell another 1% in extended trading.

Kirk acquired 2,570 Salesforce common shares. He previously bought 1,936 shares for $500,727 in December 2025. Salesforce appointed Kirk, a former Nvidia chief scientist, to its board in July last year. 

Large Insider Sales

Kirk’s bets are an outlier amid a string of large insider sales. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff offloaded $110 million worth of shares over 19 trades last year, according to data from Quiver Quant. 

Co-founder Parker Harris, who is also the CTO of Slack, sold $42 million worth of Salesforce shares in the past year, which includes the sale of a $31.5 million chunk in December.

Salesforce shares traded in a narrow range for much of 2025, but have fallen sharply in 2026 as rising concerns that general-purpose AI tools could erode demand for niche enterprise software, coupled with the volatility related to the U.S.-Iran war, hammered tech stocks.

CRM stock has dropped 26.6% year to date. Taking advantage of the weakness, the company earlier this week announced a $25 billion accelerated share repurchase program and said it has already received an initial delivery of about 103 million shares from financial institutions.

Retail’s View On CRM

However, retail investors appear to be losing their enthusiasm. On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment for CRM has been ‘bearish’ for two weeks amid ‘low’ message volume.

“$CRM not sure anyone will need this saas when there's nothing left to sell,” a retail trader said, summarizing the mood. “Company gets an upgrade and doing a buyback and it keeps dropping,” another said.

Last month, Salesforce forecast its fiscal 2027 revenue below Wall Street expectations on Wednesday, a signal that enterprise software demand might remain pressured.

Still, 39 out of 51 analysts recommend ‘Buy’ or higher for CRM shares, 11 recommend ‘Hold’ and one suggests ‘Strong Sell,’ per Koyfin. Their average price target $273.66 implies a 41% upside to the stock’s last close.

For updates and corrections, email newsroom[at]stocktwits[dot]com.

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