A Hedge Fund Manager Is Funding Bid to Oust Oakland’s Mayor — And It’s Not His 1st Recall

The effort to recall Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao is being funded almost entirely by one hedge fund manager, new campaign finance reports show, and he appears to live in a different city.

Philip Dreyfuss, a partner at San Francisco’s Farallon Capital Management, has given more than $480,000 to the recall campaign through a committee called Foundational Oakland Unites, according to a disclosure the committee filed Wednesday. That represents over 80% of the total fundraising by the Oakland United to Recall Sheng Thao campaign.

According to city planning documents from 2019, Dreyfuss lives with his wife in a home in Piedmont, but this week’s committee filing lists his address as Oakland.

Dreyfuss has not responded to multiple requests for comment.

Foundational Oakland Unites reported taking in over $605,000 between Jan. 1 and June 30—all of it from Dreyfuss, Wednesday’s filing shows. Most of that money went to the recall campaign, and nearly $125,000 was given to an effort to get rid of ranked-choice voting in Oakland.

The recall funding included $130,000 in direct contributions, about $337,500 in nonmonetary contributions and $13,000 in loans, according to the committee filing. The nonmonetary contributions involved paying $335,000 to the Newport Beach company that gathered signatures to get the recall effort on November’s ballot and $2,500 to the shop that printed the petitions.

Dreyfuss is also among the largest contributors to the effort to recall Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, having given or lent around $600,000 to the campaign. Both recall efforts will appear on the November ballot.

The campaigns in Oakland and Alameda County follow a string of similar efforts to recall elected officials across California, funded in large part by deep-pocketed donors like Dreyfuss. In 2022, he was also a major donor to the successful campaign to recall San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin.