At least one prominent businessman who has already scaled back his company's investment in Indiana isn't waiting for a proposed legislative "fix" to repair the damage done by Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Mark Benioff, CEO of cloud computing company Salesforce, told CNN Wednesday that he is helping relocate employees who want to leave Indiana in the wake of the law that many say amounts to a license to discriminate.
Benioff, who already announced that his company is scaling back its investment in the state and canceling all programs that required employees to travel to Indiana, told CNN's Poppy Harlowe that several Indiana-based employees have already asked for transfers. Benioff has readily granted those requests, he said with a smile.
"I just got an email on the way to studio from another employee who said, 'Look, I don't feel comfortable living in this state anymore, you've got to move me out,'" recalled Benioff. "And I gave him a $50,000 relocation package and said, 'Great, you're clear to go.'"
While acknowledging that the company, valued at $4 billion and headquartered in San Francisco, can't cut all ties with Indiana because it has "thousands of employees" in the state, Benioff offered an alternative:
"What we can do is that we can say that you need to protect our employees and our customers that we are bringing to Indiana, and that laws like the one that we saw passed last week by Governor Pence are not acceptable. This law is brutal, it's unfair, it's unjust, and it has to change."
The 50-year-old executive, who is married to a woman, also said Gov. Mike Pence is a "great guy, likable," but that signing the state's RFRA last week was "a huge mistake for himself, a huge mistake for the state of Indiana, and that must change."
Watch CNN Money's interview with Benioff below.
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