Marc Benioff Says Salesforce will Hire 1,000 Graduates Amid AI Job Cuts

Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, announced on the social media site X that the company will be recruiting 1,000 recent college grads and interns to help drive the AI exponential. The timing of his post is significant, as AI is already posing a threat to the profitability of software companies and SaaS providers like Salesforce throughout the world.

In his post on X on 25 April, Benioff wrote, “You are right they said AI would kill entry-level jobs. Meanwhile these grads & interns are building it — powering Agentforce & Headless360 at Salesforce. New grads: Drop your resume to @salesforcejobs or futureforce@salesforce.com.”

AI Vs Humans Battle Continues

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei made the bold prediction that artificial intelligence (AI) might do away with half of the entry-level white-collar employment in the next five years during an interview he gave in May 2025. He went so far as to predict that the effects of AI on employment would be "unusually painful”.

Plus, he said these effects will be much greater than what most countries are anticipating. In tandem with Big Tech's announcement of massive layoffs in the US, Benioff has announced the employment of 1,000 recent graduates in an effort to disprove the claim that AI is eliminating entry-level jobs. Popular messaging app Snapchat's parent company, Snap, revealed on April 15 that it will be laying off up to 16% of its worldwide workforce.

Oracle began laying off about 30,000 employees, or about 18% of its worldwide workforce, on March 31. The software powerhouse Oracle laid off 12,000 workers in India, adding to the global impact of the layoffs. In February of this year, Jack Dorsey's fintech business Block announced the layoffs of more than 4,000 workers, or around 40% of its staff.

Sacks and Benioff Counter Amodei’s Claims

The recent hiring post by Benioff was his way of rebutting the post by David Sacks, an AI expert in the Trump administration. According to what Sacks wrote in Narrative Violation, employers are hiring more recent college grads (5.6% more than last year). He used data from a recent Wall Street Journal article that highlighted positive trends in recruiting for entry-level positions.

In addition, Sacks mentioned that there has been a 5.6% increase in the hiring of recent college graduates compared to the previous year. In the 20-24 age group, the youth unemployment rate dropped from 8.9% to 5.3%. Sacks asked, "Weren't we informed that half of the entry-level positions were going away?"