Founders of Salesforce.com acquire Time magazine

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The founders of Salesforce.com Inc., Marc Benioff and his wife Lynne, have agreed to acquire Time magazine from Meredith Corp. for a whopping $190 million in cash and have joined the list of tech billionaires purchasing esteemed print publications.

The move pushed the brash 53-year-old entrepreneur, who helped lead the shift of software to an on-demand model, into a new role: media baron. It’s a transaction that reminds one of Jeff Bezos’s $250 million acquisition of the Washington Post back in 2013. That purchase brought Bezos a Pulitzer Prize-winning, 140-year-old newspaper but also put him in the crosshairs of President Donald Trump, who has called the Post an “expensive lobbyist” for Bezo’s company Amazon.

Benioff, who has a net worth of $6.5 billion, serves as the co-chief executive officer of Salesforce, but the deal is unrelated to the tech company, an official statement said. The Benioffs have bought the media brand personally.

In a joint statement issued after the historic decision, the Benioffs said, “We are honoured to be the caretakers of one of the world’s most important media companies and iconic brands. Time has always been a trusted reflection of the state of the world, and reminds us that business is one of the greatest platforms for change.”

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