No arrests 50 hours after Cash App creator Bob Lee stabbed to death in San Francisco

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Cash App founder Bob Lee was stabbed to death in San Francisco in an apparent random mugging early on Tuesday morning, friends and colleagues have confirmed.

Lee was found at 2.35am outside the luxury high rise apartment on the 300 block of Main St, near Rincon Hill and the Bay Bridge, with life-threatening stab wounds, the San Francisco Police Department said in a statement.

The 43-year-old tech executive was treated at the scene by first responders before being rushed to hospital where he died from his injuries, police said. More than two days on, no arrests have been made and police are yet to release information about possible suspects.

Lee founded the Cash App while working at Square, which was renamed Block in 2021, before becoming chief technology officer at the Jack Dorsey-led digital payment giant.

He was chief product officer at crypto payment firm MobileCoin at the time of his death.

“It’s real,” Mr Dorsey wrote on his social network Nostr. “Getting calls. Heartbreaking. Bob was instrumental to Square and Cash App. STL guy.”

MobileCoin CEO Joshua Goldbard told ABC7 News his slain colleague and friend was a “force of nature”.

“Moby was his dream: a privacy protecting wallet for the 21st Century. I will miss him every day,” said Mr Goldbard.

MMA fighter Jake Shields tweeted that Lee appeared to have been the victim of a random mugging while out working in a “good part of the city”.

Elon Musk replied to Mr Shields that he knew many people who had been “severely assaulted” in San Francisco.

“Violent crime in SF is horrific and even if attackers are caught, they are often released immediately,” Mr Musk tweeted. “Is the city taking stronger action to incarcerate repeat violent offenders (San Francisco District Attorney) Brooke Jenkins?”

San Francisco police chief William Scott declined to say whether the stabbing was a random attack in his first public comments at a Police Commission meeting on Wednesday night, The San Francisco Standard reported.

At the same meeting San Francisco Police Commissioner Kevin Benedicto said it was “premature and distasteful to try to fit this horrifying act of violence into a preconceived narrative and use it to advance a political agenda”.

Chief Scott later released a statement that the investigation was “still in the early stages” and extended his condolences to “the family, friends and loved ones of Mr Lee.”

“There is no place for violent crime against anyone in our city,” Mr Scott said. “I want to assure everyone that our investigators are working tirelessly to make an arrest and bring justice to Mr Lee and his loved ones, just as we try to do on every homicide that occurs in our city.”

Friends in the San Francisco tech community said Lee had recently relocated to Miami, and had only been visiting his former home town for one day.

Anyone with information is asked to call the San Francisco Police Department on 1-415-575-4444 or text TIP411.