SAN FRANCISCO — After the stabbing dying final week of Bob Lee, an entrepreneur and creator of Money App, in a San Francisco neighborhood well-liked amongst know-how staff, outstanding tech executives together with Elon Musk tore into town’s leaders.
Matt Ocko, a enterprise capitalist, mentioned San Francisco officers had Mr. Lee’s “literal blood on their arms.” Others recommended that homelessness and violence run amok have been in charge.
However that narrative was upended on Thursday when the police arrested Nima Momeni, who they mentioned knew Mr. Lee and labored in the identical business. Ever since Mr. Momeni was recognized, different voices within the tech world have hit again at those that used Mr. Lee’s dying to malign town on social media.
“I believe we’ll discover that this story doesn’t symbolize something common concerning the nice metropolis of San Francisco,” mentioned Jeff Lawson, chief government of the tech communications firm Twilio, whose workplaces are only a few blocks from the place Mr. Lee was killed. “Reasonably, it’s a tragic aberration, the results of an interpersonal battle — the sort that may occur in any metropolis and time.”
Mr. Lee was killed in an upscale neighborhood referred to as Rincon Hill, which sits between Oracle Park, house of the San Francisco Giants, and a quiet space close to the bay that homes workplaces for corporations like Google, Meta and Salesforce. San Francisco was a metropolis he beloved, Mr. Lee’s brother, Oliver Lee, mentioned on Thursday, including that the strikes to critique town in gentle of his dying “wouldn’t have been like him.”
As information of his killing unfold final week, some know-how entrepreneurs and enterprise capitalists primarily based within the Bay Space concluded that San Francisco’s method to crime and homelessness had led to his dying. Lots of them blamed San Francisco’s board of supervisors and Chesa Boudin, the previous district lawyer who was ousted in a recall vote final 12 months.
Jason Calacanis, a tech investor and podcaster, tweeted a video of Kevin Benedicto, a San Francisco police commissioner, through which the official cautioned towards falling right into a “preconceived narrative” a couple of “horrifying act of violence.”
“THESE ARE THE LUNATICS RUNNING SAN FRANCISCO,” Mr. Calacanis wrote with the video. “EVIL INCOMPETENT FOOLS & GRIFTERS WHO ACCOMPLISH NOTHING EXCEPT ENABLING RAMPANT VIOLENCE.”
The pile-on continued final Friday on a know-how podcast hosted by Mr. Calacanis and different enterprise capitalists. On the present, David Sacks, founder and accomplice of Craft Ventures, said he would “wager {dollars} to dimes” that Mr. Lee’s killing was like a case in Los Angeles the place “a younger girl was mainly stabbed for no cause by a psychotic homeless individual.”
Mr. Musk, the billionaire head of Twitter, which is predicated in San Francisco, concurred “completely” with Mr. Sacks’s sentiments in a reply to his tweet. Mr. Musk didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Brooke Jenkins, the San Francisco district lawyer, slammed Mr. Musk on Thursday, particularly calling his tweets on Mr. Lee’s dying “reckless and irresponsible.” Nationwide crime information exhibits that charges of violent crime have dipped or held regular over the previous a number of years within the metropolis of greater than 800,000 individuals, and that the homicide fee in 2020 was low in contrast with that of different main American cities.
Town, nonetheless, has skilled an increase in property crimes since 2020, together with a visual development in homeless encampments and drug use in public areas, all components that have been emphasised final 12 months through the marketing campaign to recall Mr. Boudin. After his elimination, he was changed by Ms. Jenkins, who had criticized her predecessor as being too lenient on criminals.
On Thursday, Mr. Calacanis, when requested if he had modified his thoughts concerning the state of affairs after the arrest of Mr. Momeni, mentioned by e-mail, “When was the final time you walked a mile in San Francisco? Do you assume it’s secure?”
Requested once more to elaborate on his place, he defined that it had not modified. “The press attempting to make this right into a ‘gotcha’ state of affairs is simply pathetic,” Mr. Calacanis mentioned.
He added that he had watched “San Francisco go from the No. 1 vacation spot for founders and senior executives to the underside of the listing. The No. 1 cause given is crime and violence.”
Mr. Sacks didn’t reply to a request for remark, however his spokeswoman despatched a link to a podcast, which was revealed early Friday, through which he and Mr. Calacanis defended their earlier assessments that unsafe situations in San Francisco have been in charge for Mr. Lee’s dying. On the recording, Mr. Sacks mentioned his wager that Mr. Lee was killed by an unhoused individual was “logical.”
Some tech staff and enterprise capitalists struck again at their narrative after the arrest, and the snap judgments made by others who implicated town.
“The identical individuals who bought a recall primarily based on their racist lies have been telling lies about how Bob died, all to additional their political agenda,” Anil Sprint, a tech entrepreneur, wrote, referring to the ouster of Mr. Boudin.
In an interview on Friday, Mr. Sprint referred to as himself an acquaintance of Mr. Lee who was aware of the slain man’s zeal for San Francisco. “He didn’t need to see San Francisco demonized,” Mr. Sprint mentioned. “To contradict the person’s values and use it for political achieve for issues he didn’t agree with is the peak of cynicism.”
Brett Ashton, 56, who’s Black and has labored for tech corporations within the Bay Space for greater than 30 years, mentioned that he was not stunned by Mr. Musk’s feedback, given what the Tesla chief and Twitter proprietor had mentioned previously. However he mentioned he felt that Mr. Calacanis had crossed over into new territory by blaming the local people.
“Their feedback are very a lot about Black individuals and brown individuals and those that don’t appear like them,” he mentioned in an interview. “They’re simply pushing a story that tech bros are being victimized by a dystopian hellscape.”
San Francisco prosecutors mentioned in a courtroom doc on Friday that Mr. Momeni, 38, stabbed Mr. Lee, 43, on a secluded avenue in San Francisco within the early hours of April 4 after which sped off in his sports activities automobile.
The 2 males had argued earlier within the night over whether or not something “inappropriate” had occurred between Mr. Lee and Mr. Momeni’s sister, prosecutors mentioned. A lawyer for Mr. Momeni, Paula Canny, mentioned that “romance” was not concerned.
Some within the know-how business didn’t attempt to make political statements after Mr. Lee’s dying, however as an alternative memorialized what he had achieved for San Francisco. Jack Dorsey, the chief government of Block, the developer of the Sq. funds system, recalled in an inside e-mail final week seen by The New York Occasions that Mr. Lee helped decide up trash across the firm’s workplace off Market Avenue.
It was on a type of cleanups that he and Mr. Lee conceived the thought for Money App, the corporate’s well-liked peer-to-peer cellular funds app, Mr. Dorsey wrote. Mr. Lee despatched the first Cash App transaction to Mr. Dorsey in August 2013.
Oliver Lee mentioned on Thursday that his household was nonetheless grieving, and that the politicization of his brother’s dying had added to their emotional burden.
“We’re centered on therapeutic and Bob’s legacy, and ensuring individuals bear in mind him for who he was,” he mentioned. “First we misplaced him. After which all this loopy consideration. It’s been laborious.”
Shawn Hubler, Thomas Fuller and Kalley Huang contributed reporting.
