Jack Dorsey is the co-founder and head of Block Inc. He also posted two videos this week that featured Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who has been criticized for sharing conspiracy stories about vaccines. Kennedy has also talked about conspiracy theories regarding the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy, and his father.
One post included a link to a interview with Kennedy from 2020, in which Kennedy discussed various conspiracy theories and former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson.
In a Tuesday post on the social networking site Primal (which uses technology that he helped fund), Dorsey shared a 2021 interview with Kennedy in which he promoted a conspiracy theory that both JFK and his father Robert F. Kennedy were killed by the CIA. He also espoused non-substantiated conspiracy theorists about vaccines, including the idea that possible vaccine side effects could be part of a pharmaceutical industry profit plan.
The posts don’t explicitly endorse Kennedy.
These posts appear as social networks are poised to play an important role in the election cycle of 2024. NBC News reported on Tuesday that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will announce on Twitter his bid for the Republican presidential nomination in an audio-only event. CEO Elon Musk has publicly supported conservatives.
Dorsey also shared a link of a address by JFK, just before sharing the interview. He later tweeted with the words “Splinter CIA, NSA and FBI into a million pieces and scatter them in the wind” along with a picture of the assassinated President.
Dorsey posted a link on May 6 to Kennedy’s Bluesky podcast, an app which uses Dorsey-backed technology.
Dorsey has not responded to any requests for comments sent via email or direct message.
Kennedy announced in April that he would be running for the Democratic nomination to run against Donald Trump. Emerson, Fox News, and Kennedy conducted surveys in April. They found that Kennedy received 19% and 21% of the Democratic Primary vote. This is a substantial amount but still behind President Joe Biden. Several prominent members of his family are against his candidacy.
Dorsey would give Kennedy’s campaign a new name. Dorsey supported unconventional Democratic candidates in the past, including Tulsi Gabrield and Andrew Yang, according to Open Secrets, the website that tracks campaign finance.
Kennedy is receiving a warm welcome from some of the most prominent far-right figures. These include Steve Bannon who, for a short time, served as an aide to Donald Trump, but now hosts a right-wing talkshow, and Infowars’ Alex Jones.
Kennedy was a keynote speaker for the Bitcoin 2023 Conference in Miami this week. This is ahead of Dorsey postings. Dorsey is a big proponent of cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies. His companies and ventures that he has backed have made many product announcements and appeared at the conference. Dorsey also many posts over the past week promoting the conference, including a Kennedy speech video.
In 2019, Dorsey produced a Podcast with a media personality who is known for anti-vaccine comments.
