Salesforce sellers think CEO Marc Benioff is out of ideas. Cramer says it might be time to buy
It might be time to take another look at Salesforce . Jim Cramer said Thursday he's considering whether to rebuild the Club's small position in the enterprise software giant, following an exaggerated 5% sell-off in the stock despite strong earnings and guidance. "The long knives are out" for Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff on the notion that he's tapped out of ideas, Jim said during Thursday's Morning Meeting. "I totally disagree with that," Jim added, suggesting a possible opportunity in the stock, which has lost more than 20% year to date compared to the S & P 500 's flat 2025 performance. In a note to clients Thursday, RBC Capital analysts said they're concerned that Salesforce is reverting to its old habit of relying on acquisitions versus organic innovation, questioning the necessity of this week's $8 billion offer to buy data management firm Informatica. Meant to accelerate Salesforce's push into artificial intelligence, the integration of Informatica could become a distraction from the company's core customer relationship management (CRM) platform, the analysts added. For those reasons, RBC downgraded Salesforce to a hold-equivalent rating. While also lowering its price target from $420 to $275 per share, it still represents more than 5% upside to where the Club stock traded Thursday afternoon, around $261. CRM YTD mountain Salesforce YTD Salesforce has struggled to get the Street on board with its grand vision of Agentforce — its answer to AI agents that can automate lots of human-like tasks. Last month, D.A. Davidson accused Salesforce of neglecting its core business to bet on AI. In an April interview with Jim on "Mad Money," Benioff defended his strategy: "We have pivoted our company hard and fast to completely absorb Agentforce into all of our products." Following Wednesday evening's earnings , which saw Salesforce deliver a better-than-expected quarter and strong guidance, Benioff told Jim that Agentforce is now a $100 million-plus annual recurring revenue (ARR) product. Additionally, he said nearly 60% of the company's largest 100 deals in the quarter included both Agentforce and Data Cloud, which together account for ARR of more than $1 billion — up from the $900 million provided in February. "Wall Street has decided that Marc Benioff, once again should be counted out," said Jim, especially as Benioff prefers acquisitions over share buybacks. "What he wants to do is become the single greatest place to be able to get agentics, in other words, take advantage of what [Nvidia CEO] Jensen Huang's doing," Jim continued. Nvidia and Salesforce announced a collaboration last year aimed at developing advanced agentic AI innovation. Since its launch, Agentforce has secured 8,000 deals, with major named customers such as PepsiCo . "Now, they're using 11 of clouds, and now led by Agentforce and our data cloud to really transform Pepsi," Benioff also told Jim in Wednesday's "Mad Money" interview. Agentforce has allowed the soft drink and snack chain to unify its businesses under a single customer information system, Benioff said. He added that every company on the Salesforce platform can do so with artificial intelligence. But not everybody on Wall Street has turned its back on Salesforce. Goldman Sachs raised its price target to $385 from $340. The analysts said they view the software enterprise's scaling capacity to pursue data and artificial intelligence opportunities as "strategically sound." KeyBanc also backed Salesforce, reiterating a buy-equivalent rating and price target of $440, stating satisfaction with the company's quarter growth metrics and upside opportunity. Jim said KeyBanc gets it. Bottom line The Club is still confident in Salesforce and its long-term trajectory. "The stock's sell-off on Thursday is surprising given the stock's underperformance this year and low expectations into the print," said Jeff Marks, director of portfolio analysis for the Club. "Although the quarter wasn't enough to silence its critics, we don't think CRM is getting enough credit for its AI ambitions," Jeff said, agreeing with the sentiment conveyed by Goldman and KeyBanc. Following earnings, we reiterated our buy-equivalent 1 rating , while lowering our price target to $350 a share from $400 to account for the skepticism in the marketplace. (Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long CRM, NVDA See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
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