Salesforce is trotting out Matthew McConaughey amid cost cuts and employees aren’t happy, leaked messages show
- Salesforce reportedly paid Matthew McConaughey $10 million a year during layoffs.
- The actor has started to appear publicly on behalf of Salesforce. Some employees aren’t happy.”
- I was denied a promotion this cycle because of ‘lack of budget’ but we can throw $10mil a year at this guy,” one wrote.
Salesforce appears to be trying to get its money’s worth out of Matthew McConaughey after the Wall Street Journal reported in February that the company paid the actor $10 million per year.
McConaughey’s voice was featured in Salesforce’s “AI Day” event in June, and the company recently announced McConaughey as a speaker at its annual Dreamforce conference in September.
However, some employees are upset because the McConaughey deal was made public just a month after Salesforce announced widespread layoffs this year. Employee cost-cutting remains a priority for the company.
Some employees complained about the company’s relationship with McConaughey in an internal Slack channel called “airing of grievances,” according to messages obtained by Insider.
“Well, that was totally worth a salary of 10 million USD a year,” one employee wrote, sharing a 15-second Salesforce marketing video in which McConaughey asks, “If AI collects your data in a forest, and no one is around to watch it, what happens?”
“Yet, there’s a focus on revenue, team meetings are cancelled due to having to book billable hours, and the budget for promotion is limited,” said another employee.
“I was denied a promotion this cycle due to a ‘lack of budget,’ but we can throw $10 million at him?” another person wrote.
Salesforce began laying off 10% of its workforce in January as activist investors pushed for higher profits. Insider obtained a draft of Salesforce’s annual planning document earlier this year, which detailed how the company planned to exceed 30% profit margins. Salesforce did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
