Salesforce, Cloudflare, and other tech giants have cut more than 118,000 jobs this year—despite record revenue growth
by Michelle Zacarias
Salesforce announced earlier this month that it will permanently lay off dozens of staffers in San Francisco—and artificial intelligence might be the reason why.
The company, San Francisco’s largest private employer with nearly 10,000 local employees, filed a regulatory notice indicating 86 permanent layoffs effective Aug. 7.
“Two weeks ago, I laid off more than 20% of my workforce. I didn’t do it because Cloudflare is struggling,” writes Prince, “I did it because business is changing, and to win the future.”
– Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince, May 2026
CEO Marc Benioff, whose net worth has been estimated at $7.4 billion dollars, has been blunt about using AI to cut jobs.
“I’ve reduced it from 9,000 head to about 5,000 because I need less heads,” Benioff said of the company’s customer support staff in a September 2025 appearance on The Logan Bartlett Show.
This marks the second time this year the company has cut jobs. Back in February, the global cloud computing company cut “fewer than 1,000 roles” at its headquarters, Salesforce Tower on Mission Street.
Benioff said AI allowed him to trim his workforce —a trend playing out across the industry even as tech companies expand their presence in the Bay Area.
In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal in May, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince boasted “record revenue growth” and “strong free cash flow” while in the same breath stating that mass layoffs were just part of the changing business that Cloudflare needed to adapt to.
“Two weeks ago, I laid off more than 20% of my workforce. I didn’t do it because Cloudflare is struggling,” writes Prince, “I did it because business is changing, and to win the future.”
Most of those cuts were what Prince calls “measurers”—middle managers and workers in finance, legal, and internal auditing, according to Fortune.
Cloudflare’s global headquarters is located in San Francisco’s South of Market district, home to some of the most profitable technology companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic. According to Forbes, the two artificial intelligence giants have accumulated a combined $242.6 billion in venture funding—about 80% of the $305.6 billion raised collectively by companies on this year’s AI 50 list.
AI tech boom driving up housing prices
Tech companies have defaulted to blaming AI for job cuts. But many are not buying that a highly profitable industry, in a city that commands a significant portion of US venture capital investments, isn’t able to create sustainable employment for workers
According to the tracking website Layoffs.fyi, there have been a reported 118,312 people who have lost tech jobs across 183 tech companies.
The tangible effects of the AI tech boom on everyday people are evident. The expansion of tech companies’ presence in the Bay Area has driven local housing costs to historic highs.
The city’s median home sale price hit a record $2.15 million in March—up 18% from a year earlier, according to The Guardian. Coupled with the mass layoffs, that leaves locals at risk of housing instability—an issue that has plagued San Francisco for decades.
Meanwhile, home prices are surging in the neighborhoods where AI money lives—and sliding everywhere else.
Although the future of employment remains uncertain for many, the AI boom is undeniably reshaping San Francisco’s economic landscape.
