A profile of Peter Thiel, who plans to leave Meta's board to focus on politics, funding far-right MAGA candidates who peddle conspiracies and deny Biden won
NYT @rmac18 and @llerer 1st reported about his involvement yesterday — More details about the app on @axios: https://www.axios.com/... @nycsouthpaw : NYT profiles Peter Thiel, the billionaire apartheid defender organizing to destroy the existing government of the United States, and gathers up all the far-right conspiracy-loving candidates he's giving to. https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... Ryan Mac / @rmac18 : I spent the last few months following Peter Thiel and trying to understand his philosophy as he made the largest political bets of his life. He never talked to me and one event kicked me out, but here's our story on the right's new kingmaker (w/ @llerer): https://www.nytimes.com/... Ryan Mac / @rmac18 : Axios with more details on what we first reported. Thiel put $1.5 million into the conservative dating app of Trump's close aide and body man. https://twitter.com/... Brendan Nyhan / @brendannyhan : Nothing to worry about, just a financier who is hostile to democracy devoting millions to purging the last remnants of resistance from a party that tried to overturn an election and incited an insurrection https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... @rulajebreal : When you have a funder who is actively elevating candidates who are denying the legitimacy of elections, & pledging to dismantle federal institutions — that is a direct assault on the foundation of democracy. https://twitter.com/... Katie Rogers / @katierogers : “When you have a funder who is actively elevating candidates who are denying the legitimacy of elections, that is a direct assault on the foundation of democracy” - unsettling read! @RMac18 @llerer https://www.nytimes.com/... David Smiley / @newsbysmiley : In the past, many courted the Koch brothers or the late-Sheldon Adelson. This year, they have clamored for invitations to Mr. Thiel's Los Angeles and Miami Beach homes, or debated how to at least get on the phone with him https://www.nytimes.com/... @can : based techmeme — no lies detected https://twitter.com/... Robert Stephens / @rstephens : Really proud of @techmeme for not mincing words here. https://twitter.com/... Ari Levy / @levynews : Remember when you were told Peter Thiel has moved away from Trump? He hasn't. https://www.nytimes.com/... Molly Jong-Fast / @mollyjongfast : This is pretty scary stuff https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... @nytimes : Peter Thiel, one of Donald Trump's biggest donors in 2016, is now a key financier of the MAGA movement. The tech billionaire is backing 16 Senate and House candidates, many of whom have embraced the lie that Trump won the election. https://www.nytimes.com/... @espiers : I don't know how anybody in the tech world does business with Thiel at this point. He's embracing white nationalists and attempting to destroy democracy (unsurprising since he's written that he believes democracy and freedom are incompatible): https://www.nytimes.com/... Allan Smith / @akarl_smith : Thiel and Trump “have met at least three times in New York and at Mar-a-Lago, sometimes with Mr. Masters or Mr. Vance. And Mr. Thiel invested in Mr. McEntee's company, which is building a dating app for conservatives called the RightStuff.” https://www.nytimes.com/... Hunter Walker / @hunterw : Great profile of Peter Thiel, who is going to be one of the more interesting figures on the right in the next few years. It touches on a lot of interesting aspects of his background, but there's so much more ... https://www.nytimes.com/... @_zeets : “While the investor has been something of a cipher, he is currently driven by a worldview that the establishment and globalization have failed, that...immigration policy pillages the middle class and that the country must dismantle federal institutions.” https://www.nytimes.com/... Steve Milloy / @junkscience : “Thiel has started articulating his thinking publicly... he criticized the Chinese Communist Party and big tech companies and questioned climate science.” Sounds like the right agenda. https://www.nytimes.com/... Ryan Cooper / @ryanlcooper : basically this is fascism with American characteristics https://www.nytimes.com/... Shane Goldmacher / @shanegoldmacher : A @RMac18 and @llerer joint on Peter Thiel. From recording of October speech: “My somewhat apocalyptic, somewhat hopeful thought is that we are finally at a point where things are breaking” https://www.nytimes.com/... @jbouie : interesting to see who provides intellectual cover to this thug oligarch whose idea of “freedom” is his right to dominate the rest of us https://twitter.com/... Emily Flitter / @flitteronfraud : Peter Thiel & Ken Griffin are the GOP's largest donors but “What sets Mr. Thiel's spending apart is its focus on hard-right candidates who traffic in the conspiracy theories espoused by Mr. Trump,” @RMac18 & @llerer write https://www.nytimes.com/... @jbouie : “Mr. Thiel showed his provocative side at Stanford in the late 1980s. Classmates recalled Mr. Thiel, who studied philosophy and law, describing South Africa's apartheid as a sound economic system. (A spokesman for Mr. Thiel has denied that he supported apartheid.)” Malcolm Harris / @bigmeaninternet : Thiel's electoral work is the tip of his political iceberg, which makes sense for a guy who does not believe in democracy https://www.nytimes.com/... @jbouie : nice profile of (one of) the silicon valley billionaires who hates democracy and political equality https://www.nytimes.com/... Greg Greene / @ggreeneva : Friends of democracy — whether on the left or otherwise — ought to favor the vertiginous taxation of great wealth because America, at the moment, has _multiple_ billionaires who fit Bouie's description. https://twitter.com/... Ryan Mac / @rmac18 : As we move closer to the midterms, people we spoke with said they wouldn't be surprised if Thiel continues to donate or double down on candidates. Many thanks to @llerer, @CadeMetz, @kitty_bennett, and @rachel_shorey for their work on this. https://www.nytimes.com/... Alex Howard / @digiphile : “Peter Thiel, one of Donald J. Trump's biggest donors in 2016, has re-emerged as a prime financier of the [ _________ ] movement. https://www.nytimes.com/... 🔘White nationalist 🔘#MAGA 🔘Far-right conservative 🔘Crypto-fascist 🔘Anti-democratic 🔘All of the above https://twitter.com/... Ryan Mac / @rmac18 : To understand Thiel's politics, we saw '13 emails w/ Curtis Yarvin, a neoreax figure popular in tech circles, in which he explains his backing of Tea Party star Ted Cruz: “He threatens the Republican establishment.” That thinking has carried on to today. https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... @karoli : So we're clear here — Thiel wants to establish an oligarchy where he owns everything, including us. And he will use crypto to crush the economy and every means possible to crush us. No exaggeration. Murdoch looks like a paper tiger next to Thiel. https://twitter.com/... Ryan Mac / @rmac18 : @llerer Thiel has made $20.4 million in donations to federal candidates this election cycle, more than he's donated in all his previous years combined. The bulk of has been from two $10 million checks to his Senate candidate proteges, JD Vance and Blake Masters. https://www.nytimes.com/... Ryan Mac / @rmac18 : Thiel did not give money to Trump in '20, but has been rebuilding connections w/ the former president and his inner circle. We learned that he funded a startup of one of Trump's closest aides. That startup is trying to build a dating app for conservatives. https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... Tony Romm / @tonyromm : i was eagerly awaiting this story https://www.nytimes.com/... Kurt Andersen / @kbandersen : Peter Thiel is is such an unabashed force for evil, a plausible successor to Rupert Murdoch as the single greatest America-wrecker of his generation. Perfect that they're both cosmopolitan immigrant billionaires pursuing anti-immigrant cultural populism https://www.nytimes.com/... John Schwartz / @jswatz : “Mr. Thiel has started articulating his thinking publicly, recently headlining at least six conservative and libertarian gatherings where he criticized the Chinese Communist Party and big tech companies and questioned climate science.” https://www.nytimes.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Thiel's exit from Meta's board caps a decade-long drift from tech executive to full-time political financier. He defended his first Trump donation back in 2016 while insisting his business relationships were intact, and a book excerpt last year detailed his partnership with Steve Bannon and battles with the IRS — the profile now reports he is done splitting time.
The scale is what makes this a story rather than a resignation note: two $10 million checks to Senate candidates JD Vance and Blake Masters, $20.4 million to federal candidates this cycle, and backing for 16 MAGA-aligned House and Senate contenders, several of whom deny Biden won. His inner circle later described the departure as years in the making, not a snap decision.
First-order effects
- Meta loses its most prominent conservative director at exactly the moment Republican lawmakers are scrutinizing Big Tech, removing the company's best-placed bridge to the GOP.
- Vance and Masters get Thiel's money and attention undiluted by board duties, making them the test cases for whether a single funder can install allies in the Senate.
Second-order effects
- Other Valley billionaires face pressure to match him rather than sit out: Marc Andreessen has since described his own evolution from Democrat to Trump supporter, signaling that Thiel's bet is being treated as a template, not an outlier.
- Candidates who promote false 2020 claims gain access to a funding source that cares more about ideology than electability math, shifting which Republicans can finance competitive primaries.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, venture-scale personal fortunes become a standing wing of the Republican coalition — with a policy feedback loop already visible in David Sacks shaping AI and crypto policy that benefits his own investments and those of his friends.
- Tech boards may increasingly treat politically active directors as liabilities, pushing founder-investors to choose between corporate seats and open political warfare rather than holding both.
The trend: Silicon Valley wealth is converting from occasional campaign checks into direct, full-time political power inside the GOP, with Thiel as the proof of concept others are following.