Marc Benioff says Salesforce's investment in Anthropic was a plan B that could pay off in ‘tens of billions’

Not being able to invest in OpenAI may have worked out perfectly for Salesforce.

On an episode of the Sources Podcast published Tuesday, Marc Benioff told host Alex Heath that he originally wanted Salesforce to invest in OpenAI.

Instead, the company backed its rival Anthropic, a decision the Salesforce CEO now thinks could be worth a fortune. “I knew Sam Altman very well,” Benioff said. “I was like, ‘Hey, I’d really like to be investing now in the company.’ And he’s like, unfortunately, because of the Microsoft relationship, we were not allowed to invest in OpenAI.” Microsoft, an enterprise software competitor to Salesforce, holds roughly 27% of OpenAI, has rights to use OpenAI technology in its products, and sells access to OpenAI models through Azure.

Benioff said the situation changed Salesforce’s approach. “We felt like, whoa, we can’t go here, we’re going to have to go everywhere else,” Benioff added, saying it was “not because we were so smart” and spotted an overlooked winner.

Benioff believes the bet could pay off handsomely and said that the investment has become a close business partnership.

Salesforce’s Slackbot and other new interfaces are powered by Claude, Anthropic’s AI model. “It’s because we have been pushed so close with Anthropic,” Benioff said. “I think we’ll make not just billions but maybe tens of billions of dollars on it.” Salesforce has not disclosed how much of Anthropic it owns, but an Anthropic IPO could establish a public market value for Salesforce’s stake and eventually offer a way to sell shares.

The Claude maker has been preparing for a potential listing, although the timing is uncertain.

OpenAI is also considering a public debut, but Altman said its IPO would not happen in 2026.