When Elliott Management said it had taken a multi-billion dollar stake in software giant Salesforce on January 23, it appeared that Salesforce CEO and cofounder Marc Benioff might be in for a bruising activist battle. Even when Salesforce announced days later that it had reached an agreement with another shareholder activist — ValueAct Capital — to put its CEO and CIO Mason Morfit on the Salesforce board, Elliott was still readying a slate of directors in anticipation of a proxy battle.
