Butterfield reportedly had about an hour with Benioff before Salesforce announced its Slack deal

Slack co-founder and former CEO Stewart Butterfield told Johnny Rodgers he had “about one hour of total facetime” with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff before their companies' deal was announced, The Next Web reports. Butterfield said his last meeting with Benioff was cut short because Matthew McConaughey arrived. The Next Web identifies McConaughey as one of Salesforce's celebrity spokespeople.

Rodgers was one of Slack's original eight team members. Salesforce announced the deal in December 2020, and it closed in 2021. Rodgers left Slack in spring 2023; his account looks back on the company's first two years inside Salesforce, according to The Next Web.

The account also describes friction after the acquisition. Slack co-founder and former chief technology officer Cal Henderson is quoted as saying Salesforce was put onto Slack but “weren’t really using it, especially in Sales.” Henderson said Salesforce sold products its teams understood, while Slack did not fit its usual sales pattern.

Butterfield decided to leave in autumn 2022. He told Rodgers that a trip to Davos was a tipping point: He expected to meet customers but instead joined an innovation panel with will.i.am, another Salesforce spokesperson, The Next Web reports.