On Thursday, it was reported that Salesforce (CRM, Financial) CEO Marc Benioff refuted claims that the company is negotiating a large-scale cloud agreement with major tech firms to manage its artificial intelligence workloads.
Benioff responded to X, stating, "The story in @TheInformation is incorrect." He said that Salesforce considered deploying the fourth option in 2024 but, in the end, concluded that the best thing to do was to extend its partnership with Google (GOOG, Financial) and continue to run future releases of its Customer 360 apps, including Hyperforce, Agentforce and Data Cloud on Google's platform.
According to the initial report, Salesforce President and Chief Engineering Officer Srini Tallapragada presented to company executives the idea that the company was in talks with Microsoft (MSFT, Financial), Google, and Oracle (ORCL, Financial) regarding a cloud deal worth more than $1 billion over several years.
When Salesforce navigates growing AI infrastructure demands, benioff's public rebuttal is to set the record straight. The denial also speaks to the competitive sphere of AI-driven enterprise software evolution having cloud partnerships as an important aspect.
