Elon Musk called “brutal crime in San Francisco”frightening” and moved the offices of his social media company X out of the city in 2024 for security and business reasons. Other local tech companies have tried to solve their security problems by working directly with police officers.
Airbnb and Salesforce are among the companies that have contracted San Francisco police to regularly guard their offices for years, according to public records obtained by WIRED. Airbnb, for example, spent about $428,443 on uniformed and armed officers in 2024, the most recent year for which complete data was received. Salesforce spent approximately $727,907 through the security provider. Payment amounts have not been previously disclosed.
Salesforce has hired police to protect its offices in the tallest building in San Francisco, known as Salesforce Tower, as well as a nearby building in the busy downtown area. It also spent nearly $41,000 on behalf of officers attending the TrailblazerDX 2024 conference held at the city’s convention center.
In recent weeks, there has been renewed attention on tech companies’ security practices in San Francisco after a man allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail at the home of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and he tried to barge to the company’s headquarters by ramming a chair into the glass door of the building. Authorities say the suspect wrote a document criticizing artificial intelligence technologies, in which he outlined the goal of killing Altman and referenced the names of other AI executives. He faces state and federal charges but has not yet entered formal pleas.
OpenAI and Anthropic, two leading creators of generative artificial intelligence models based in San Francisco, are not regular customers of the city’s police hiring program, according to police spokeswoman Allison Maxie.
Salesforce, Anthropic and Airbnb declined to comment. OpenAI did not respond to requests for comment.
The contracting program is locally known as 10B, which is also city code fragment authorizing it. Any person, company or organization that requires additional personnel or equipment “for law enforcement purposes” may request “such personnel to provide such services”, provided the Chief of Police first approves. By law, companies pay officers the same hourly wage the city would charge, including overtime. Records show that in early 2024, the pay for a regular officer was $135 an hour during the day and for a lieutenant at night, it was almost $190.
The program is often used by organizations organizing concerts, events and conferences, as well as sports teams that need additional security. The San Francisco Giants baseball team was the biggest spender in 2024, with a bill of $1.9 million. This year, at least four National Basketball Association teams paid a total of about $16,500 for police escorts.
In 2024, several technology companies used this program once. According to the data, OpenAI is paying $813.43 for unspecified coverage at the Asian Art Museum, Microsoft has a single bill for $1,622.16 and Zoox has a tab for $838.43. Casual or one-time clients in past years have included Affirm, Cruise, Datadog and Fanatics.
Zoox spokeswoman Marisa Wiggam said police protected a huge gathering of employees off-site and that it was open to using the program again if needed. Microsoft and Affirm declined to comment. The other companies did not respond to requests for comment.
Houses of worship, office building owners, retail stores and bank branches, including Apple, Bank of America, Best Buy, Bloomingdale’s, Chase, Lululemon and Sephora, are more likely to exploit the program, data shows. Security Industry Specialists paid more than $1.2 million in 2024 for police coverage described at three Apple Stores, making it its second-largest client of the year.
An estimated 80 percent of police departments nationwide allow officers to moonlight informally or through formal policies such as San Francisco’s, according to a survey from over a decade ago by Seth Stoughton, faculty director of the Police and Public Safety Excellence Program at the University of South Carolina. Some cities have expressed concerns about conflicts of interest and the risk of liability arising from the arrangements. But agencies that allow it say it benefits officers’ community relations and wallets, the Stoughton survey found.