White House names new Presidio Trust board, including Benioff and Traina

Lynne Benioff and Trevor Traina are now at the center of the White House’s latest move over the Presidio Trust, a board reset that could shape how San Francisco’s 1,500-acre national park balances public access, development and stewardship. The six-member slate, announced May 14, replaced the board President Donald Trump fired on April 12 and reopened the fight over who controls one of the city’s most visible and politically charged public spaces.

The new appointees are Benioff, Traina, John Bickford, Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, James Burnham and Kyle Corcoran, who will hold the veteran’s seat. The Presidio Trust board has seven seats in all, with six presidential appointees and one seat held by the U.S. secretary of the interior or a designee. It acts only as a body and makes decisions by vote, which means the shift in membership could affect not just symbolism but the direction of future decisions.

That matters in a place that draws about 9.5 million visits a year and has long been remade as both parkland and revenue-generating property. The Presidio Trust says it operates without regular congressional appropriations, relying instead on income from hospitality and real estate businesses. Over time, the site has taken on museums, restaurants, hotels, homes and offices, making board appointments consequential for everything from public access to how the land is used and maintained.

Trump’s removal of the previous board came after a February 20, 2025 executive order aimed at shrinking the federal bureaucracy. It also landed in the middle of an already unsettled period for the trust, with three members’ terms having expired nearly a year earlier and the others due to expire later. The leadership shake-up arrived as CEO Jean Fraser said in February that she plans to step down at the end of 2026, adding another layer of transition inside the organization.

Benioff’s return is especially notable in San Francisco. She served on the Presidio Trust board from 2015 to 2025 and was chair from June 2021 to March 2023. She also co-chaired the Presidio Tunnel Tops campaign, which raised $98 million to create 14 acres of new parkland. Since opening in July 2022, Tunnel Tops has drawn more than four million visits, underscoring how closely the board’s decisions are tied to the everyday experience of the park.

Traina brings a different profile as a tech entrepreneur and former ambassador. Together with Bickford, Arrillaga-Andreessen, Burnham and Corcoran, his appointment gives the White House a fresh hand on an institution Congress created in 1996 through the Omnibus Parks and Public Lands Management Act. For San Franciscans, the question now is whether that hand will preserve the Presidio’s public mission or steer it toward a different set of priorities.