Salesforce begins up to $25B debt raise for stock buybacks

Group 1 - Salesforce plans to sell up to $25 billion to fund stock buybacks, which has led to a downgrade by Moody's [1] - The strategy of leveraging debt to buy back stock is reminiscent of older tech companies like IBM and Oracle, rather than pioneering new AI advancements [2] - Salesforce's AI segment, Agent Force, is growing at 170% year-over-year but still constitutes less than 2% of total revenue [3] Group 2 - The company spends approximately $3.5 billion annually on stock compensation, indicating that a significant portion of the buyback is aimed at covering dilution rather than returning capital to shareholders [4] - The decision to increase debt raises questions about the company's growth prospects, especially as the market is already skeptical about its growth story [4] - Other tech companies are primarily using borrowed funds for mergers and acquisitions or to build infrastructure for AI, while Salesforce's borrowing is solely for stock buybacks [5]