By TOI Tech Desk
Publication Date: 2026-04-01 13:10:00
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has now shared how tech giant Microsoft stopped the company from investing on OpenAI. Speaking in an interview with Matthew Berman of Future Forward, Benioff revealed that Microsoft prevented Salesforce from participating in an OpenAI investment round. Microsoft, which already poured billions into OpenAI and tightly integrated its technology into products like Copilot, reportedly discouraged other potential investors from joining. Benioff added that despite the discouragement Salesforce ultimately found a way to invest signalling the company’s determination to secure a stake in the AI future.“We were really pinning after investing in OpenAI and no matter what we did in OpenAI they kind of refused to let us invest in OpenAI because Microsoft blocked us. So because we were feeling so down about Microsoft blocking us even though we known OpenAI was a great company and we wanted to invest in it and we liked the OpenAI team…
