President Donald Trump is stepping up his calls to deploy the National Guard to San Francisco at the very moment that the city is undergoing a post-pandemic resurgence, propelled by artificial intelligence.

Crime rates are down 30% from 2024, homicide levels hit their lowest levels in 70 years and car break-ins haven’t been this low in 22 years. Meanwhile, event bookings and tourism are on the rise, residential real estate is becoming more scarce and the office market is heating up.

Business momentum in the city is largely built on the AI boom.

New data from CBRE show venture capital funding in 2025 is expected to surpass the record high of $276 billion hit in 2021. The bulk of that investment has been in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, where 80% of AI venture funding through the third quarter has been targeted to the tune of $115 billion.

By the end of the September, the San Francisco Bay Area was already 35% above its previous annual investment peak, according to CBRE’s VC Funding analysis.

“San Franciscans are feeling positive about the direction of our city once again,” Daniel Lurie, the city’s Democratic mayor said in a statement last week released by Governor Gavin Newsom’s office. “And we are going to continue working every single day to build on this progress and keep our city safe 365 days a year.”

The statement was meant to tout the successful efforts of local law enforcement ahead of Salesforce’s annual Dreamforce conference last week. The issue became particularly controversial after Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff told the New York Times that he’d support Trump’s call for federal troops to be sent to San Francisco. His sentiments were publicly supported by Elon Musk and David Sacks, high-profile techies with close ties to the Trump Administration.

On Friday, facing mounting criticism, Benioff backtracked, posting on X that, “Having listened closely to my fellow San Franciscans and our local officials, and after the largest and safest Dreamforce in our history, I do not believe the National Guard is needed to address safety in San Francisco.”

The Trump administration recently deployed the National Guard to Chicago and Portland, Oregon, sparking protests and lawsuits. Over the weekend, President Trump repeated his plans to send troops to San Francisco, telling Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo that, “the difference is I think they want us in San Francisco.”

The White House didn’t immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on the President’s plans.

In a statement late Monday, Lurie said San Francisco law enforcement has partnerships with federal agencies to deal with drug crimes and additional troops aren’t necessary.

“I am deeply grateful to the members of our military for their service to our country, but the National Guard does not have the authority to arrest drug dealers — and sending them to San Francisco will do nothing to get fentanyl off the streets or make our city safer,” Lurie said.

Lurie previously cheered the safety of events that took place in the last week including Dreamforce and No Kings Protests over the weekend. In contrast to Newsom, Lurie has taken a far less combative approach to Trump since taking office in January.

“San Francisco is on the rise,” Lurie wrote in a post on X on Oct. 12, a couple days before Dreamforce was set to begin.

The data support that view.

Tourism spending is expected to increase modestly this year to $9.35 billion, up from $9.26 billion, according to the San Francisco Travel Association. Conferences, sporting events such as NBA All-Star weekend, and music festivals like Outside Lands have contributed to the growth.

The commercial real estate market is also recovering as Covid-era work from home policies get slowly unwound.

Tech companies increased their share of leasing activity by square footage to 53% in 2025, the highest since 2019, CBRE said. Apartment rental prices are surging as well. Multifamily rentals increased 6% in August, much more than the 3.75% jump in Chicago, the city with the second-steepest climb, according to CoStar.

Ted Egan, chief economist for San Francisco, told CNBC in an interview that “housing is probably as cheap as it’s going to get for a while.”

There remains plenty of room for improvement. The city has lost key tenants in its downtown shopping district in recent years, including its flagship Nordstrom store. The Nordstrom location was part of San Francisco City Centre, which was the city’s largest mall but is now effectively empty.

Office vacancies remained high at 33.6% in the third quarter, according to Cushman and Wakefield. Homelessness and open drug use are longstanding issues, heavily concentrated in certain parts of the city.

But Egan said that, in addition to the data, he’s noticed a significant change in the city’s health.

“It seems cleaner and safer now than it’s ever been in any of the time that I’ve been here,” said Egan, who’s worked in San Francisco for more than 20 years. “I still think it’s a great place to move to because it’s got tons of economic opportunity. It’s got tons of long-term economic strengths for people starting out in their career.”

WATCH: Salesforce CEO faces pushback over support for potential National Guard deployment

Two of the main members of the PayPal mafia are sparring again — this time over artificial intelligence.

Billionaire tech investor and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman on Monday called Anthropic “one of the good guys” after the AI startup was criticized last week by David Sacks, the venture capitalist serving as President Donald Trump’s AI and crypto czar.

“Anthropic, along with some others (incl Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI) are trying to deploy AI the right way, thoughtfully, safely, and enormously beneficial for society,” Hoffman wrote on X. “That’s why I am intensely rooting for their success.”

Hoffman has served on Microsoft’s board since 2017, shortly after selling LinkedIn to the software giant. Microsoft is a key OpenAI investor and partner. Hoffman was also an early investor in OpenAI, Anthropic’s larger rival, and remains a shareholder. He revealed on Monday that Greylock, where he’s a partner, has invested in Anthropic.

Greylock and Anthropic didn’t respond to requests for comment.

In a series of posts, Hoffman said he tries to avoid commenting directly about companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, but that “in all industries, especially in AI, it’s important to back the good guys.”

Hoffman and Sacks were both early employees at PayPal, joining in 1999 and assuming major roles at the payments company. Along with Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Max Levchin and a group of other high-profile techies, they were part of what became known as the PayPal mafia because of the number of successful companies they went on to build.

But Hoffman and Sacks have been public antagonists recently, due mostly to their political differences. Hoffman is a major Democratic donor, contributing millions of dollars to Kamala Harris’ unsuccessful presidential bid.

Sacks emerged as a vocal Trump supporter ahead of the 2024 election before joining the administration. He hosted a fundraiser for Trump at his San Francisco mansion.

Anthropic was founded in 2021 by a group of former OpenAI executives and researchers who left the company over concerns about safety. Jack Clark, one of the startup’s co-founders and its current head of policy, added fuel to the debate about regulation last week, publishing an essay called “Technological Optimism and Appropriate Fear.”

Sacks criticized the essay and, in a post on X, accused Anthropic of “running a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering.” He said the company is “principally responsible for the state regulatory frenzy that is damaging the startup ecosystem.”

Anthropic has repeatedly pushed back against efforts by the federal government to hinder state-level regulation of AI, including a Trump-backed provision that would have blocked those rules for 10 years.

After Hoffman shared his thoughts about Anthropic on Monday, Sacks and Musk, who owns a competing AI company called xAI and was also a major early figure in the second Trump administration, were quick to respond.

“The leading funder of lawfare and dirty tricks against President Trump wants you to know that ‘Anthropic is one of the good guys,'” Sacks wrote in response to Hoffman on Monday. “Thanks for clarifying that. All we needed to know.”

“Indeed,” Musk said in a reply.

The chirping went back and forth on Monday.

“Shows you didn’t read the post (not shocked),” Hoffman wrote. “When you are ready to have a professional conversation about AI’s impact on America, I’m here to chat.”

Jason Calacanis, who co-hosts the All-In podcast, along with Sacks and two other tech friends, wrote in response to Hoffman that he should “come on the pod,” inviting him this week. Hoffman previously joined for an episode at the end of August, roughly two months before the presidential election.

Hoffman wrote that he is “open to coming back on” but that “this week is packed.”

— CNBC’s MacKenzie Sigalos contributed to this report

WATCH: Anthropic’s Mike Krieger on new model release and the race to build real-world AI agents

OpenAI announced on Monday in a joint statement that it will be working with Bryan Cranston, SAG-AFTRA, and other actor unions to protect against deepfakes on its artificial intelligence video creation app Sora.

The “Breaking Bad” and “Malcolm in the Middle” actor expressed concern after unauthorized AI-generated clips using his voice and likeness appeared on the app following the Sora 2 launch at the end of September, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists said in a post on X.

“I am grateful to OpenAI for its policy and for improving its guardrails, and hope that they and all of the companies involved in this work, respect our personal and professional right to manage replication of our voice and likeness,” Cranston said in a statement.

Along with SAG-AFTRA, OpenAI said it will collaborate with United Talent Agency, which represents Cranston, the Association of Talent Agents and Creative Artists Agency to strengthen guardrails around unapproved AI generations.

The CAA and UTA previously slammed OpenAI for its usage of copyrighted materials, calling Sora a risk to their clients and intellectual property.

OpenAI had to block videos of Martin Luther King Jr. on Sora last week at the request of King’s estate after users created “disrespectful depictions” of the civil rights leader.

Zelda Williams, the daughter for late comedian Robin Williams, asked people to stop sending her AI-generated videos of her father shortly after the Sora 2 release.

OpenAI’s approach to copyright restrictions and other issues related to likeness have evolved since the Sora 2 launch Sept. 30.

On Oct. 3, CEO Sam Altman updated Sora’s opt-out policy, which previously allowed the use of IP unless studios specifically requested that their material not be used, to allow rightsholders “more granular control over generation of characters.”

At launch, Sora required an opt-in for the use of an individual’s voice and likeness, though OpenAI said that it is now also committing to “responding expeditiously to any complaints it may receive.”

The company reiterated its support of the NO FAKES Act, a federal bill passed designed to protect against unauthorized AI-generated replicas of people’s voice or visual likeness.

“OpenAI is deeply committed to protecting performers from the misappropriation of their voice and likeness,” Altman said in a statement. “We were an early supporter of the NO FAKES Act when it was introduced last year, and will always stand behind the rights of performers.”