Michael Anthony Adams, and Stephanie Wang

Soon after Gov. Mike Pence signed the religious freedom bill into law Thursday, Salesforce.com founder and CEO Marc Benioff announced on Twitter that he would no longer send employees or customers to Indiana.

"Today we are canceling all programs that require our customers/employees to travel to Indiana to face discrimination," he tweeted.

Salesforce, a cloud computing company headquartered in San Francisco, acquired Indianapolis-based marketing software company ExactTarget last year for $2.5 billion.

Pence signed the state's Religious Freedom Restoration Act in a private ceremony Thursday.

Business leaders in the tech community had addressed a letter to him urging him to veto the measure.

"As leaders of technology companies, we not only disagree with this legislation on a personal level, but the RFRA will adversely impact our ability to recruit and retain the best and the brightest talent in the technology sector," the letter reads. "Technology professionals are by their nature very progressive, and backward-looking legislation such as the RFRA will make the state of Indiana a less appealing place to live and work."

In a tweet sent out to his 150,000 followers Wednesday night, Benioff said his cloud computing company would be "forced to dramatically reduce (its) investment in IN based on (its) employee's & customer's outrage over the Religious Freedom Bill."

A request for clarification of the statement and how RFRA's passing would impact Salesforce customers and employees in Indiana was not immediately returned.

Signatures on the letter include Jon Gilman, founder and CEO of Clear Software; Scott McCorkle, CEO of Salesforce Marketing Cloud; John McDonald, CEO of CloudOne; Bill Johnson, founder and CEO of Salesvue; Jenny Vance, president of LeadJen; Max Yoder, founder and CEO of Lesson.ly; and Benioff.

Gilman, who wrote the letter, originally planned to have more than a dozen CEOs sign the plea to Pence, but he told The Indianapolis Star that time was running out and the letter had to be in the governor's office by 8 a.m. Thursday.

Those who did sign the letter collectively agree that RFRA blurs the line between the separation of church and state "and opens the door to blatant discrimination."

To remain competitive, the signatories said, they want Pence to veto the legislation so their businesses can continue running in Indiana.

Call Star reporter Michael Anthony Adams at (317) 444-6123. Follow him on Twitter: @MichaelAdams317.