Hawaii
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is buying big chunk of land in Hawaii and nobody knows why
Remember the first episode of Schitt’s Creek where Johnny Rose, the billionaire, reveals he bought a town for his son as a joke? It got some of us wondering if anybody would ever do that in real life. Turns out, something similar is happening in Hawaii, where Salesforce CEO is buying up big chunks of land worth millions of dollars. However, while the fictional character Rose had a reason to buy up an entire town and boasted about it in the first episode, Benioff is tight-lipped about his acquisitions.
An investigative report by Dara Kerr for NPR revealed that Benioff has bought at least 38 chunks of land in Hawaii through several anonymous companies since 2000. Even though none of the documentation has Benioff’s name, he isn’t disputing any of it, Kerr added.
Salesforce CEO is buying chunks of Hawaii
The report adds that Benioff bought more than 600 acres in total in Hawaii. In Waimea, he got 29 pieces of land, which is over 580 acres, and nine more pieces, about 25 acres, at beach resorts. One of his coastal properties even goes around a whole public beach. All of this land put together is worth almost USD 100 million.
That’s not all, Benioff is even paying above market value for some pieces of land and the residents in the area are concerned that due to this, housing costs for them would go up.
Even though the residents of Hawaii seem to be concerned about Benioff’s purchasing, they refused to be named in the report. Derr also reported that nobody seems to know what is going on and what is the reason behind the purchases.
She also revealed how Benioff’s demeanor undergoes a shift when has was questioned about the properties held within the anonymous LLCs. His speech quickened, and he nervously began fidgeting with a piece of paper clutched in his hand, Kerr added. In addition to this, his advisor intervened during the interview and suggested a postponement of the discussion to a later time.
However, Kerr added that amidst the hesitation, Benioff did share some insights. He mentioned owning a private ranch equipped with ten horses, where a local family grazes their cattle. Additionally, he disclosed having family members residing in the area and revealed plans to initiate a community meeting center.
But apart from this, there is no clarity about the reasons behind these purchases.
The NPR reporter also revealed how Benioff kept bringing up her personal details in the interview and seemed to know a lot about her. When she tried clicking photographs of a property owned by him from outside, she was stopped by two of his employees and was accused of “snooping around.”
When Benioff went on a digital detox trip
Last year, the Salesforce boss was making headlines when he revealed that he went on a “digital detox trip” after firing thousands of employees. Salesforce fired around 7,000 employees last year which accounted for 10 percent of its workforce at the time.
While talking to The New York Times, Benioff had said back then that he went on a 10 day ‘digital detox’ trip to his favourite place, French Polynesia, after the layoffs announcement.
“We’re so addicted to our devices (at least I am) that it’s very freeing to leave them all behind for a while!” Benioff told The New York Times over text.
The report also mentioned that after the layoffs, he held a virtual company meeting in which he spoke for about two hours. Terming the meeting as a ‘bad idea’, Benioff said, “We were trying to explain the inexplicable.”
He added, “It’s hard to have a call like that with such a large group and have it be effective, and we’ve paid the price for that.”
Hawaii
Suspect arrested in attempted armed robbery on North Shore
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Police have arrested a suspect in a violent attempted robbery on Oahu’s North Shore. Another suspect still has not been located.
Police said the two men approached another man in Mokuleia Friday night. One of the men allegedly assaulted the victim while the other one threatened him with a handgun.
According to police records, the suspects ran off when the victim called police.
Officers later identified one of the suspects as a 50-year-old man. He was arrested Tuesday and faces possible charges of robbery in the first degree.
Copyright 2026 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.
Hawaii
Few state bills this year face potential veto – West Hawaii Today
Hawaii
Hawaii displays historic photos of Martin Luther King Jr. wearing flower lei during Selma march
HONOLULU — Photographs of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. adorned with flower lei from Hawaii residents who traveled to Selma, Alabama, to join him on a pivotal Civil Rights march went on public display Tuesday in the state Capitol in Honolulu.
The Selma-to-Montgomery marches galvanized passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which did away with most barriers such as poll taxes and other forms of voter discrimination targeting Black Americans in the Deep South.
A delegation of five people brought dozens of flower lei with them from Hawaii to Alabama in March 1965. Images of King wearing lei, garlands that are synonymous with Hawaiian culture, have been previously published — but most of the photos displayed in Hawaii’s new exhibit have never been seen before. Some photos have subtle variations, while others include figures who may have been deemed unimportant at the time. The exhibit runs through July 7.
One of the lei-bearers was Charles Campbell, a high school teacher and chairman of the Hawaii Civil Rights Conference, who a March 20, 1965 article in The Honolulu Advertiser quoted as saying: “Selma has the capability of becoming a real sore that could affect the entire nation.”
King was photographed wearing lei about two weeks after the event known as Bloody Sunday when state troopers violently attacked Civil Rights marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma on March 7, 1965.
The photos were taken by Civil Rights photographer Matt Herron, whose widow donated them to Hawaii’s Department of Accounting and General Services for the state’s archives.
After the photos were unveiled, Steven Springel stared at a photo of his mother, Nona Ferdon, who was a divorced mother of two children and a graduate student when she traveled to Selma.
This photo provided by Jeannine Herron shows Charles Campbell, who traveled to Alabama for the march from Selma to Montgomery, placing a lei on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at Brown Chapel AME in Selma, Ala., March 21, 1965. Credit: AP/Matt Herron
Springel remembers he was just about to turn 7 and only realized as an adult how important her trip was. Growing up in Hawaii, “we never experienced segregation or racial inequality,” he said of his and his sister’s childhood. Ferdon died in 2021.
The exhibit, part of Hawaii’s programming to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States, is a reminder people from the Aloha State participated in an important event in history, said Keith Regan, who oversees the department as the state’s comptroller and presided over the photo unveiling as acting governor while Gov. Josh Green is out of state.
The small delegation traveled thousands of miles “to be a part of the Civil Rights movement, to show ‘aloha’ to the world that Hawaii was there holding hands with our fellow brothers and sisters to ensure equality and justice were heard throughout the nation,” he said.
The Hawaii members also wore lei during first day of the 50-mile (80.46-kilometer) march. Mothers of Kawaiahaʻo Church in Honolulu strung together fragrant plumeria plucked from church grounds to assemble the lei.
This photo provided by Jeannine Herron shows Nona Ferdon, a graduate student who accompanied the Hawaii delegation that traveled to Alabama in 1965 for the march for voting rights, attends the march in Selma, Ala., March 21, 1965. Credit: AP/Matt Herron
Giving lei, a word that is both singular and plural in the Hawaiian language, continues to be a way to share the “aloha” spirit. People in Hawaii give and receive lei for all kinds of reasons, including to celebrate birthdays and promotions, or to show appreciation or recognition.
Tomi Knaefler, who had traveled with the delegation as a reporter with the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, planned to attend Tuesday’s news conference. But at 96 years old, she wasn’t feeling up to it, said her daughter, Pamela MacDonald, who did attend.
MacDonald said she was 14 when her mother went on the assignment, “the one that she holds dearest to her heart.”
The exhibit comes at the end of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2026 term, which included a ruling gutting the remaining piece of the Voting Rights Act, setting off a wave of partisan gerrymandering in states in the South and endangering generations of gains in Black political representation.
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