At $35,800 a head, it was never going to be an ordinary dinner party. But for 60 well-heeled San Francisco citizens, the 'at home' at Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff's Presidio Heights house was something to be remembered.
It was certainly a melee outside the dinner:
Once seated, the top table saw Benioff saw next President Barack Obama with Steve Wonder on the other side while Will.I.Am - a regular attendee at any Salesforce.com gathering these days - sat opposite.
Benioff introduced the President, saying that in a time of many crises: "We have the right person to lead us here."
For his part, Obama commented: "I've got a lot of friends in this room. Some of you are involved in startups. Well, I was a startup not so very long ago... So many of you took a chance on me, and it was not at all likely I was going to win."
Of that $35,800 ticket price, $30,800 to the Democratic National Committee and $2,500 each to Obama's primary and general re-election campaigns. Donors were guaranteed that the President would speak to each table individually. That tops the 2010 fundraising dinner at Google VP Marissa Mayer's hoome which set guests back $30,800 per person.
Dinner came after an earlier attempt to woo the tech vote through a visit to the Facebook campus where Obama was joined on stage by founder Mark Zuckerberg. "My name is Barack Obama and I'm the guy who got Mark to wear a jacket and tie," the President said at the beginning of a live-streamed town hall event.
Zuckerberg took his revenge at the end of the session by presenting Obama with a "Facebook hoodie" that President politely claimed was "a high fashion statement".
It's election season in the US – there's going to be lot of this sort of thing to come...