[not verified in body] A public art light sculpture at the top of the building, consisting of 11,000 LEDs, displays video animations every evening that can be seen from up to 30 miles (50 kilometers) away.

[14] Salesforce Tower was designed by Argentine-American architect César Pelli[3] and developed by Hines Interests Limited Partnership and Boston Properties.

[18] The building is enclosed in a lattice consisting of white aluminum fins and perforated sunshades, which reach out as much as two feet beyond the glass skin.

[23] The footprint of Salesforce Tower rests on land fill near San Francisco's original waterfront, an area prone to soil liquefaction during earthquakes.

[25] The Salesforce Transit Center is located directly adjacent to the building, and is connected to the park level by a bridge on the 5th floor.

[26] The crown of the tower features a nine-story electronic light sculpture, "Day for Night", by artist Jim Campbell.

[27][28][29] At the time, its daily schedule began at dusk with a display of the sunset's colors, followed by low resolution videos derived from footage filmed during the day by 12 cameras in various San Francisco locations (including the Ferry Building and the Cliff House), and concluded with displaying a star constellation from midnight to sunrise.

[29] The installation went toward fulfilling the requirement of San Francisco's "Downtown Plan" that one percent of construction costs have to be set aside for public art.

The TJPA sold the parcel to Boston Properties and Hines for US$192 million,[37] and ceremonial groundbreaking for the new tower occurred on March 27, 2013, with below-grade construction work starting in late 2013.

Upon opening, the building was 97% leased to tenants including Salesforce, Covington & Burling, WeWork, Bain & Company, Accenture, McDermott Will & Emery and Hellman & Friedman.

[44] At the time of the building's opening in January 2018, the San Francisco Chronicle's architecture critic John King characterized it as "Immense but understated.

All of which makes for a nuanced tower, conscientious and self-assured even as it reorients the skyline and redefines San Francisco’s visual image.

"[16] King also reported that "[a]rchitecture buffs already dismiss Salesforce Tower as old hat, another Clarke Pelli shaft with a tapered silhouette — just like the International Finance Centre in Hong Kong or Torre Costanera in Santiago, Chile" (the tallest building in South America).