By TradingView
Publication Date: 2026-09-23 02:09:00
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,…
