Wealthy hedge fund manager, Philip Dreyfuss is spending lavishly on right-wing candidates and causes in Oakland with the aim of masking his involvement in the city’s elections. The machinations of various political organizations involved in the recalls of Mayor Sheng Thao and District Attorney Pamela Price, as well as the March 2024 city elections, show that Dreyfuss is the hub for a complex Astroturf Network.

Dreyfuss, a partner in Farallon Capital, and a resident of Piedmont, a tiny enclave in the Oakland Hills, spent more than $1 million to recall Thao and Price, making him both campaigns’ biggest contributor by a large margin. Before the Thao and Price recalls, Dreyfuss’s only major political contribution was to the 2022 recall of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin.

Dreyfuss burst on Oakland’s political scene in 2023 with the creation of Foundational Oakland Unites, an independent expenditure committee that boasts an $800,000 war chest. Dreyfuss is Foundational Oakland Unites sole contributor. In papers filed with the state of California, it describes itself as committed to “counter the Radical Activists’ Class grip on Oakland.” Two other groups, Revitalize East Bay and the now-defunct the Supporters of Recall Pamela Price received funding from Foundational Oakland Unites.

After the successful recalls of Thao and Price, Foundational Oakland Unites turned its attention to the campaign for Thao’s replacement, a battle that would pit conservative and Dreyfuss favorite, one-time City Councilman Loren Taylor, against former Congresswoman and progressive icon Barbara Lee. Taylor, lost by a razor-thin margin to Sheng Thao in the November 2022 mayoral election and then became a leading figure in her recall and that of fellow progressive Pamela Price, before running again for the city’s top office.

To better understand this tangled web, it’s worth identifying the players in the three Dreyfuss-funded groups and their connections. It reveals that Dreyfuss is the financial engine behind a collection of political groups created to oust Thao and Price. It also shows Dreyfuss’ reliance on a small group of individuals, many with ties to Loren Taylor, who share a conservative agenda.

• Foundational Oakland Unites, the independent expenditure committee funded solely by Dreyfuss, was briefly operated by Len Raphael, a conservative candidate for Oakland City Council. Raphael would receive financial support from Foundational Oakland Unites in his losing campaign. Chris Moore, the campaign manager for the Supporters of Recall Pamela Price, and like Dreyfuss, a Piedmont resident, replaced Raphael as Foundational Oakland Unites’ chief executive. 

• The Coalition to Reclaim Oakland was founded in December 2023 by Rebecca J. Olson who also established Foundational Oakland Unites. The Coalition to Reclaim Oakland changed its name to the Black Action Alliance about a month before becoming sponsor of a March 2025 of a candidates’ forum on KTVU. Prior to changing its name, the Coalition to Reclaim Oakland was behind an effort to eliminate ranked-choice voting in local elections, one that Dreyfuss contributed $125,000 to via Foundational Oakland Unites. Taylor blames his loss to Shao on ranked-choice voting.

  
  

• Revitalize East Bay appears to have been established for the sole purpose of funnelling Dreyfuss’ money into the Thao and Price recalls. It was originally operated by Trishala Vinnakota, who eventually became Loren Taylor’s campaign director. The driving force behind Revitalize East Bay is real estate investor Isaac Abid, an ally of Dreyfuss’ from the recall campaigns.

After the recalls, Dreyfuss broadened his interests. In addition to the $125,000 donated to the effort to eliminate ranked-choice voting, Foundational Oakland Unites spent $124,240 on a mailer endorsing a slate of conservative candidates including former Thao Recall Chair Brenda Harbin-Forte for City Attorney and more than a dozen City Council aspirants. The same mailer recommended that voters reject three local ballot measures, two that imposed taxes for firefighting, police, and violence prevention services, and a third that called for bolstering the city’s Public Ethics Commission, a measure that Dreyfuss, whose machinations have drawn the attention of election overseers, not surprisingly, opposed.

Dreyfuss’ greatest loss in the November 2024 election was the victory of Barbara Lee over his ally Loren Taylor. In keeping with his penchant for hiding in the shadows, Oakland’s biggest political operator has yet to give an interview to the local press, but despite Dreyfuss’s low media profile, it is clear that conservative moneyed interests will remain a part of Oakland’s political landscape and voters must continue to be wary of any candidate that takes their money.