Twitter trolls were part of the reason why Salesforce walked away from a deal
Benioff said a lot of things, like that Twitter's price, and work culture, contributed to his decision to walk away from a deal. Part of it also likely had to do with the pressure from investors, as Salesforce stock plummeted after it was reported to be interested in buying Twitter.
But according to CNBC's "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer, Salesforce was turned off by a more fundamental problem that's been hurting Twitter for years: trolls.
"What's happened is, a lot of the bidders are looking at people with lots of followers and seeing the hatred," Cramer said on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street," citing a recent conversation with Benioff. "I know that the haters reduce the value of the company...I know that Salesforce was very concerned about this notion."
Cramer didn't further elaborate on Salesforce's thinking. But Twitter's troll problem isn't anything new if you've been following the company for a while.
In fact, Twitter's ex-CEO Dick Costolo acknowledged the problem last year, saying he's "taking personal responsibility" for it and that he's "ashamed of how poorly" the company has dealt with the issue. One report last year suggested that a whopping 88% of the abusive mentions on social media happen on Twitter.
Twitter's built a variety of new services to fight this issue, including a new "Safety Center" and a list of tools to block abusive users, but Cramer thinks it needs to do a better job.
"It's a free fire zone," Cramer said, referring to Twitter.