In Fight Over San Francisco Building, Bitcoin Pioneer Is Rejected by Democratic Elite #CriptoNews

In San Francisco, it is informally called “Susie’s Building” in deference to the owner of the 12th-floor penthouse with wraparound views of the bay. Susie Tompkins Buell, a power broker in Democratic politics, is known for throwing lavish fund-raising parties and writing checks so large they can start a campaign.

A who’s who of the Democratic Party has made a point of stopping by over the years. Bill and Hillary Clinton. Barack Obama. Kamala Harris. Nancy Pelosi. The political elite in San Francisco still recall the time Mr. Clinton’s Secret Service agents got trapped in Ms. Tompkins Buell’s elevator and had to be rescued by firefighters.

In other words, the Pacific Heights tower built in the 1920s is not the sort of place where you would expect to find an acerbic, conservative cryptocurrency executive with a fondness for President Trump and Elon Musk.

Nonetheless, Jesse Powell wanted in.

Mr. Powell, an early Bitcoin proponent and the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, had his heart set on unit No. 9 and its sprawling 3,500 square feet three levels below Ms. Tompkins Buell’s penthouse. The living room’s picture windows offer stunning views of the sparkling bay, the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island.

He could have figured there would be problems, given his conservative politics and his past. But what would unfold wasn’t just a feud between a co-op board and a buyer whose reputation preceded him. The dispute in Susie’s Building would lead to a lawsuit this week and would become the latest political skirmish in a polarized nation.

If they did a quick online search, the residents of the 12-unit building would have read about Mr. Powell’s social media posts ripping San Francisco for what he viewed as its rampant crime problem and his praise for Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk.

There were the Kraken employees who said he fanned a culture war within his company by questioning the use of preferred pronouns, starting debates about who can use a racial slur and saying that most American women had been brainwashed. He departed the company months later amid those complaints and a Treasury Department investigation into Kraken.

And then there was the time F.B.I. agents searched his home in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles in 2023 after a nonprofit he founded accused him of hacking and cyberstalking. The raid did not result in criminal charges against Mr. Powell.

On the other hand, he had gobs of money to spend. Enough money to make an all-cash offer in a building where a nearly identical apartment sold three years ago for $15.5 million. (His offer on the privately listed apartment was “in the same ballpark,” he said, though he remained under an obligation not to disclose the actual amount.)

And, he might have figured, what better endorsement could he possibly get than from the seller who accepted his bid?

It was none other than Eleni Kounalakis, the lieutenant governor of California. Ms. Kounalakis is as Democratic as they come, a onetime ambassador to Hungary under Mr. Obama who has been an active donor and delegate in the Democratic Party for much of her life. She is considered a strong candidate to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom when he is termed out in less than two years — as long as her close friend, Ms. Harris, decides not to seek the job.

But even an agreement from Ms. Kounalakis and her husband, Markos Kounalakis, wouldn’t be enough. Before the sale was final, it had to be approved by the co-op building’s other apartment owners. In a co-op building, buyers are not technically scooping up one apartment, but rather purchasing shares in a nonprofit corporation that owns the whole building.

That is when the deal stalled indefinitely. Nearly five months after the sales agreement was signed, the sale remains in escrow.

A member of the co-op board raised concerns last year about Mr. Powell, and in late November the building’s owners voted unanimously to reject the sale.

On Wednesday, Mr. Powell filed a lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court, in which he claimed housing discrimination and other violations. He had asked to meet with the board before he filed the lawsuit, but was told by its lawyer that the matter was “concluded,” according to the filing.

“It raises the question about whether these ‘progressives’ actually believe in diversity and inclusion when it comes to their own neighbors,” the lawsuit says.

It is not clear exactly why the board rejected the sale. The board’s lawyer did not return requests for comment. And Ms. Tompkins Buell and other building residents either could not be reached or declined to comment.

Mr. Powell said that he believes the board rejected him because its members do not like him, his crypto business or his conservative pro-Trump politics. He has demanded that the board let him move in whether it wants him as a neighbor or not.

“I certainly don’t have a problem sharing a building or an elevator or a neighborhood with people with very different ideas of my own,” Mr. Powell said. “They are certainly not showing me any grace or any open-mindedness. The fact they won’t even talk to me is very telling.”

Homeowners’ associations and co-op boards usually approve sales, but occasionally reject them, almost always over financial concerns, said Cyrus Koochek, a lawyer who works in San Francisco and Los Angeles representing such organizations.

He said co-op boards have discretion, but they cannot discriminate against potential buyers based on race, gender, national origin, religion or another protected attribute.

Political leanings would not fall into those categories.Judging someone based on reputation, he said, would fall into a gray area.

“It’s very murky when it’s, ‘We heard this about you, and we just don’t like you,’” Mr. Koocheck said.

None of the reports of Mr. Powell’s past seemed to matter to Ms. Kounalakis. David Beltran, a spokesman for the lieutenant governor, said that she and her husband had agreed to sell the apartment to Mr. Powell and that his politics were “irrelevant” to them.

Ms. Tompkins Buell made her fortune as the co-founder of the clothing brands Esprit and the North Face. She is married to Mark Buell, a real estate developer. The couple was instrumental in the early political rise of Ms. Harris, as Mr. Buell organized a finance committee of wealthy locals to back her successful run for San Francisco district attorney.

The couple use their penthouse as a pied-à-terre and fund-raising space while living most of the time in Bolinas, a coastal town north of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Ms. Tompkins Buell, in an interview with the website Remodelista, described the unit as an aspirational purchase when she bought it in 1988. “I had fantasized about living in that very space for years. I really did,” she said. “For years, I had visions of myself up there with the windows wide open playing opera to the whole city.”

Other residents include Bruce Golden, the venture capitalist, and his wife, Michelle Mercer, who regularly donate to progressive causes geared toward supporting women, and Marsha Rosenbaum, a former director of the San Francisco office of the Drug Policy Alliance, which advocates reforms in drug laws.

When Ms. Tompkins Buell has more donors than her penthouse can hold, she asks her neighbors on lower floors — Democrats eager to do their duty — to host the spillover.

Mr. Powell said that he left San Francisco several years ago because of quality-of-life concerns. He blamed “mentally ill drug addicts on the streets physically assaulting people around me,” a refrain similar to those voiced by Mr. Musk before he moved X out of the city. But Mr. Powell said he wanted to move back because he believed voters were steering the city in a moderate, common-sense direction. He cited the election of its new mayor, Daniel Lurie, an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, as a promising step.

Mr. Powell said that he does not want just any San Francisco apartment. He has his eyes squarely on unit No. 9. He said that he is not worried about living among people who clearly do not want him there.

“The seller is very intent on selling, and I’m very much intent on buying,” he said. “I’m not going to let a bunch of grumpy old people get in the way.”