Slack
Verified“US-owned, AWS-hosted: an EU data tenant, not an EU company.”
- Listing
- NYSE: CRM (parent)
- Acquisition
- $27.7B (2021)
- Scale
- ~42M daily active users
- Parent revenue
- ~$37.9B FY2025
17 = midpoint of Control 19 & Data 14
Sovereignty Quadrant
Control ↑ who owns & governs the company · Data → where your data lives. Every dot is a company — click to open it.
Every number below traces to 14 sourced facts across 10 independent sources, last verified 2026-06-12. 3 open questions hold confidence at 88% — they lower confidence, never the score.
Control ↑
Who legally and economically controls the company
Legal & Jurisdiction
30
Ultimate parent and operating entity are US/Delaware, but an Irish entity (Slack Technologies Limited, Dublin) is the EU data controller with the Irish DPC as lead supervisory authority, so EU law does reach an in-scope Slack entity under a foreign parent.
Why 30? 4 sourced facts · click to expand
The Slack operating entity is Slack Technologies, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company and wholly-owned subsidiary of Salesforce.
Salesforce press release (deal close) · as of 2021-07-21
Slack Technologies Limited, an Irish company in Dublin, is the controller of Other Information and processor of Customer Data for users in workspaces outside the US and Canada, with the Irish Data Protection Commissioner as lead EU supervisory authority.
Slack Privacy Policy · as of 2026-06-12
Slack's parent Salesforce, Inc. was incorporated in Delaware and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
Salesforce FY2024 Form 10-K (SEC) · as of 2024-01-31
Slack's registered EU entity is Slack Technologies Limited, Salesforce Tower, North Dock, Dublin, Ireland, company number 558379.
Slack Company Information page · as of 2026-06-12
Control & Ownership
8
Slack is 100% owned by Salesforce, Inc., a US-listed (NYSE: CRM), Delaware-incorporated public company; there is no EU voting control and no EU economic majority.
Why 8? 3 sourced facts · click to expand
Salesforce completed its acquisition of Slack on July 21, 2021 in a deal valued at approximately $27.7 billion, making Slack a wholly-owned Salesforce unit.
Salesforce press release (deal close) · as of 2021-07-21
Salesforce, Inc. is a US public company listed on the New York Stock Exchange under ticker CRM.
Salesforce FY2024 Form 10-K (SEC) · as of 2024-01-31
The merger was effected via Salesforce's Delaware subsidiaries Skyline Strategies I Inc. and Skyline Strategies II LLC, the latter surviving as Slack Technologies, LLC.
Salesforce 8-K (SEC EDGAR) · as of 2021-02-26
Data →
Where your data lives and who can reach it
Data & Infrastructure
15
User data is hosted on AWS (a US hyperscaler) and defaults to AWS US; EU data residency for messages/files at rest is opt-in, but metadata is always processed in the US and both parent and provider fall under the US CLOUD Act.
Why 15? 4 sourced facts · click to expand
Slack states it is hosted with Amazon Web Services and the default storage location is AWS US.
Slack Privacy FAQs · as of 2026-06-12
Data residency lets customers store certain data at rest (messages, canvases, files, search index) in EU regions including Frankfurt, Paris, Stockholm and Zurich; without it, data is stored in the US.
Slack Help Center: Data residency for Slack · as of 2026-06-12
Even with data residency, member profiles, workspace membership info, usage metrics, analytics and Slack-generated IDs are stored/processed outside the chosen region (in the US).
Slack Help Center: Data residency for Slack · as of 2026-06-12
For EU transfers Slack relies on Standard Contractual Clauses and the EU-US Data Privacy Framework rather than EU-only hosting, since the underlying infrastructure is a US-controlled provider.
Slack GDPR commitment · as of 2026-06-12
Operations & People
12
Slack is run from Salesforce Tower in San Francisco under US leadership and consolidated into Salesforce's USD financial reporting; EU offices are sales/support satellites, not the center of gravity.
Why 12? 3 sourced facts · click to expand
Slack's headquarters is Salesforce Tower, San Francisco, California, operating as 'Slack Technologies, LLC, a Salesforce company.'
Slack Company Information page · as of 2026-06-12
Slack CEO Denise Dresser, based in San Francisco, left in December 2025 to join OpenAI as chief revenue officer, underscoring US-centered leadership of the unit.
CNBC · as of 2025-12-09
As a Salesforce subsidiary, Slack's results are consolidated into Salesforce, which reported FY2025 revenue of about $37.9 billion and ~76,400 employees, reported in US dollars.
Salesforce DEF 14A FY2025 (SEC) · as of 2025-01-31
Aligned to the EU Commission’s official Cloud Sovereignty Framework (SEAL, Jun 2026) →
What we don’t know
3 open questions — they lower confidence, never the score
- ?
What is Slack's standalone revenue and employee headcount today?
Salesforce stopped disclosing Slack as a separate segment, so operations scale is inferred from the parent rather than measured directly.
- ?
Who is Slack's permanent CEO as of mid-2026 after Denise Dresser's December 2025 departure?
Reporting indicated CPO Rob Seaman as interim leader; a confirmed permanent appointment was not verifiable, but leadership remains US-based either way.
- ?
What share of EU customers actually enable EU data residency versus defaulting to AWS US?
Data residency is opt-in and Enterprise-tier; if adoption is low, the practical infrastructure footprint is even more US-centered than the option suggests.
EU Cloud Sovereignty Framework lens
The EU Cloud Sovereignty Framework (SEAL) is designed to assess cloud service providers; applying it to Slack is an analogous mapping for comparability, not a certification or an official SEAL score.
Strategic
Strategy and roadmap are set by US parent Salesforce; Slack is a unit of a US public company with no EU strategic autonomy.
Legal & jurisdictional
Delaware-incorporated under a US parent; an Irish entity provides an EU contracting/GDPR wrapper, but ultimate control and CLOUD Act exposure are US.
Data & AI
EU data residency for messages/files at rest is available (Frankfurt, Paris, Stockholm, Zurich), but metadata is always processed in the US.
Operational
Run from San Francisco under US leadership and consolidated into Salesforce's USD reporting.
Supply chain
Core hosting depends on AWS, a US hyperscaler, plus the US parent; no EU-sovereign provider in the critical path.
Technological
Proprietary, closed platform controlled entirely by Salesforce; no EU-controlled or open self-hostable stack.
Security & compliance
Holds broad certifications (ISO 27001, SOC 2, GDPR DPA with SCCs, EU-US DPF) but compliance rests on transfer mechanisms, not EU-only control.
Environmental sustainability
No Slack-specific environmental disclosure verified; AWS/Salesforce group-level commitments exist but were not assessed here.
EU alternatives
Open-source, self-hostable secure messaging on the Matrix protocol, used by EU governments; vendor is UK-based (post-Brexit, not EU), but data can be fully EU-hosted or on-prem.
US company, so not EU-controlled, but open-source and self-hostable — you can run it entirely on EU/sovereign infrastructure, removing the hosting dependency.
Swiss-based, GDPR-aligned, EU/Swiss-hosted end-to-end encrypted team messaging; Switzerland is not in the EU but offers strong European data protection.
How the method works
Methodology v2 (provisional): the score is the midpoint of two axes — Control (who owns and governs the company) and Data (where your data lives and who can reach it). Each axis is scored only on verified evidence; unknowns reduce confidence, never the score. Every input below is sourced; the weights and judgments are open to challenge.
Spotted an error? Every claim is sourced — challenge it and we correct the record.
- 2026-06-12 — Initial golden profile, authored from primary sources (human + AI review).
Report Incorrect Data
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Verified 2026-06-12 · Human + AI joint review (sources independently checked) · Methodology