Welcome back to The Stratosphere.

First, some housekeeping: It has been two years since we launched this email in June 2021—thanks for reading every Tuesday for the last 24 months. If you’ve enjoyed these notes, nudge a friend to subscribe at this link.

Today, three scoops from the world of philanthropy and mega-donors: First, Jack Dorsey explains himself to Block staff—or doesn’t—over why he is backing R.F.K. Jr. for president. Then, a look at the bonkers fundraising schedule in the Bay Area over the next week, including a visit from a self-funding billionaire, Doug Burgum. Plus some news on a high-profile political departure from the orbit of Wall Street legend, Dan Loeb. It’s a great day to subscribe.

But first…

• Mark Your Calendars!: After much delay, the somewhat last-minute Joe Biden West Coast fundraising trip I previewed several weeks ago is officially papered and happening, according to three invites I’ve seen. Biden has two events in the South Bay on June 19, Juneteenth—a Los Gatos reception co-hosted by Reid Hoffman and at the home of top fundraiser Shannon Hunt-Scott and her husband Kevin, the C.T.O. of Microsoft; and a second at the home of Steve Westly and Anita Yu in Atherton.

  Both of those events have a $25,000 minimum for attendance. There’s a cheaper event the following day at the Marin County home of Stephanie Robinson with “special guest” Gavin Newsom (minimum: $5,000). Interestingly, Biden will actually be in the Bay Area at the same time as Ron DeSantis, who has an event on the 19th hosted by Embarcadero Capital Partners’s John Hamilton, in Woodside, just a few miles away from where Biden will be that day.

Dorsey’s answer to the pre-submitted question began predictably enough. “I’m not sure what he’ll do for the country that’s in line with our own mission of economic empowerment,” said Dorsey, wearing a plain black t-shirt and his signature beard. “I’ve spent a lot of time listening to all the candidates and on podcasts and what they’ve written and what they’ve shared in a number of Q&As. And the thing I’ve been most impressed with R.F.K., Jr. is how strong he is against regulatory capture and industry’s ability to guide regulators.”

He continued: “So as it pertains to our own industry, we’re certainly in an industry that has a lot of influence by very, very large financial entities that have a tendency to potentially steer regulators in particular ways and are not necessarily leveling the playing field for individuals. That’s why we started the company, literally.”

But it was the second part of his answer that raised eyebrows internally, I’m told. “As it pertains to conspiracy theories, I don’t know,” Dorsey said during the meeting. “I haven’t paid a lot of attention to that part. I’m more concerned with the policies and the ideas and the fight that someone brings to actually change things. And I’m cautiously optimistic, especially relative to all other candidates that we’ve seen, which is kind of a super unfortunate, weak field at the moment.”

Not entirely surprising, perhaps, for a new-age wellness-obsessed C.E.O. who famously took weeks off work from Twitter and Block to go on silent vipassana meditation retreats. And, of course, Dorsey is hardly a heavy hitter in the political arena—he cares a lot about social-justice issues, but he is not considered a deep thinker on public policy. Still, it scarcely passes the smell test for Jack to suggest that he “hasn’t paid a lot of attention” to Kennedy’s position on vaccines, especially if he has been spending “a lot of time” listening to what R.F.K. has been saying publicly. He wasn’t asked about R.F.K.’s anti-vax platform in a rare interview he did this week with Saagar Enjeti and Krystal Ball, just saying that it was “refreshing” to have a candidate who “has no fear in exploring topics that are a little bit controversial.” True!

The sixth presidential fundraiser in the area, until now under wraps, is the most intriguing. While Doug Burgum, the business-friendly Republican governor of North Dakota, has been planning to largely self-finance his quixotic ’24 bid, I’ve learned that he’s actually going to raise some outside money—a fact confirmed by a Burgum campaign aide. I am told he’ll be in the Bay Area at an event hosted by Dick Boyce, a veteran G.O.P. fundraiser and a former TPG executive, and Hamid Moghadam, the C.E.O. of Prologis and an increasingly active player in local and national politics.

Burgum, obviously, is a longshot among longshots, but he probably has the strongest real relationships with the tech industry of any of the dozen Republicans running for the presidency. In the ’80s and ’90s, Burgum built an accounting software company, Great Plains Software, which he sold to Microsoft for a cool $1 billion. He went on to work for Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer there, overseeing the company’s enterprise business. He’d later become a V.C. focused on the Midwest—he had a small-potatoes firm based in Fargo—but continued to serve as the chairman of SuccessFactors and then Atlassian, the Australian software juggernaut, both of which had billion-dollar-plus exits.

That’s all to say that Burgum is actually credible with some elites, and I wouldn’t be shocked to see some of them—like Ballmer, perhaps, who is still a Burgum friend—get involved with his campaign or back it. Voters, obviously, are a different story.

While not a household name, Cook-McCormac has been a well-known figure in national political circles since helping Loeb and other like-minded donors pass New York’s gay-marriage bill in 2011. (Cook-McCormac was one of the architects of a strategy to organize donors and create the political conditions such that it was easier for Republicans to vote for gay marriage than to oppose it.) He then went to work in-house for Loeb, joining his hedge fund, Third Point, as the firm’s Head of Public Affairs in 2015. He effectively served as Loeb’s lobbyist, pushing his priorities like charter schools and criminal-justice reform, as well as advocating for the usual hedge fund-specific issues.

But Cook-McCormac recently stepped down from Third Point, I’ve learned. He is striking out on his own with a lobbying shop called Ius Impact, where his first lobbying-registration clients include a bunch of Loeb priorities, such as Success Academy Charters and the Council for Investor Rights and Corporate Accountability.

Some people in my ear have been buzzing about his departure and what it portends for Loeb’s engagement in politics going forward: Third Point has had a poor run as of late… without Cook-McCormac, and perhaps less money, could Loeb be preparing to back away a bit from his political bets? I’m told that the answer is, more or less, no, the exit was amicable, that Dan and Jeff remain close, and that Loeb is going to stay active in politics with philanthropy chief Daniel Sperling—just without his full-time eyes and ears for the last few years. I’ll be watching to see who Loeb backs in ’24. I’ve heard one of his big bets could be Chris Christie, who I know many major donors want to see on a G.O.P. debate stage.