Peter Thiel

Peter Andreas Thiel (Template:IPAc-en; born 11 October 1967) is a German and American<ref name="GAHF">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist.<ref name=":4">Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Facebook.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref name=":2" /> According to Forbes, as of May 2025, Thiel's estimated net worth stood at US$20.8 billion, making him the 103rd-richest individual in the world.<ref name=Forbes>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Thiel has been described as "perhaps America's leading public intellectual today,"<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> or "intellectual architect of Silicon Valley's contemporary ethos".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Others debate the consistency or morality of his views.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>Template:Refn<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref name="lemonde1"/>

Born in Germany, Thiel was taken to the US by his parents when he was one year old. In 1971, his family moved to South Africa then South West Africa,<ref name="McGreal">Template:Cite news</ref> before moving back to the US in 1977.<ref name="McGreal" /> After graduating from Stanford, he worked as a clerk, a securities lawyer, a speechwriter, and subsequently a derivatives trader at Credit Suisse. He founded Thiel Capital Management in 1996 and co-founded PayPal with Max Levchin and Luke Nosek in 1998. He was the chief executive officer of PayPal until its sale to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion.

Following PayPal, Thiel founded Clarium Capital, a global macro hedge fund based in San Francisco.<ref name=insider-2023>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2003, he launched Palantir Technologies, a big data analysis company, and has been its chairman since its inception. In 2005, Thiel launched Founders Fund with PayPal partners Ken Howery and Luke Nosek. Thiel became Facebook's first outside investor when he acquired a 10.2% stake in the company for $500,000 in August 2004. He co-founded Valar Ventures in 2010, founded Thiel Capital in 2011, co-founded Mithril Capital in 2012, was investment committee chair, in 2012, and was a part-time partner at Y Combinator from 2015 to 2017.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="PayPalMafia">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":6">Template:Cite news</ref> He was granted New Zealand citizenship in 2011, which later became controversial in New Zealand.

Variously described as a conservative libertarian and democracy-skeptic authoritarian, Thiel has made substantial donations to American right-wing figures and causes. Through the Thiel Foundation, Thiel governs the grant-making bodies Breakout Labs and Thiel Fellowship. In 2016, when the Bollea v. Gawker lawsuit ended up with Gawker losing the case, Thiel confirmed that he had funded Bolea (Hulk Hogan). Gawker had previously outed Thiel as gay.

Early life and education

Template:See also Peter Andreas Thiel was born in Frankfurt am Main, Hesse, then part of West Germany, on 11 October 1967, to Klaus Friedrich Thiel and his wife Susanne Thiel.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref> The family emigrated to the United States when Peter was one year old and lived in Cleveland, Ohio, where his father worked as a chemical engineer.<ref name=":4" /> Klaus worked for various mining companies, which created an itinerant upbringing for Thiel and his younger brother, Patrick Michael Thiel.<ref name=bloomberg>Template:Cite web</ref> Thiel and his mother later naturalized as U.S. citizens, whereas his father did not.<ref name=":0" /><ref name="DW" />

Before settling in Foster City, California, in 1977, the Thiel family lived in South Africa and South West Africa (modern-day Namibia) in the time of apartheid. Peter changed elementary schools seven times. He attended for two years a German-language school in Swakopmund that required students to wear uniforms and utilized corporal punishment, such as striking students' hands with a ruler. He said this experience instilled a distaste for uniformity and regimentation later reflected in his support for individualism and libertarianism.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The German community in Swakopmund was known at the time for its continued glorification of Nazism.<ref name="McGreal" /> Thiel was noted as a smart, but lonely, withdrawn boy, with whom others would not mingle because they knew he would not stay long in the town.Template:Sfn

Thiel played Dungeons & Dragons and was an avid reader of science fiction, with Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein among his favorite authors. He is a fan of J. R. R. Tolkien's works, stating as an adult that he had read The Lord of the Rings over ten times.<ref name=Brown2014>Template:Cite news</ref>

Thiel excelled in mathematics and scored first in a California-wide mathematics competition while attending Bowditch Middle School in Foster City.<ref name="fortune" /> At San Mateo High School, he read Ayn Rand and, influenced by his parents, admired Nixon and Reagan.Template:Sfn He was valedictorian of his graduating class in 1985.<ref name="fortune" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> When at school, he reportedly charged $500 each to take the SAT for underclassmen, knowing this would cost him his spot at Stanford if discovered.Template:Sfn

Thiel studied philosophy at Stanford University. The replacement of a "Western Culture" program at Stanford with a "Culture, Ideas and Values" course that addressed diversity and multiculturalism prompted Thiel to co-found The Stanford Review, a conservative and libertarian newspaper, in 1987. The paper received funding from Irving Kristol.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> Thiel was The Stanford Review's first editor-in-chief until he graduated in 1989. Thiel has maintained his relationship with the paper, consulting with staff and donating to the newspaper.<ref name="Granato">Template:Cite web</ref> According to Marc Andreessen, Thiel's time at the Review marked the beginning of a career-long strategy: using provocative verbal cuesTemplate:Sndlater delivered through talks, books and mottosTemplate:Sndas a way to attract capable individuals to his projects, preferring this method over actively seeking out talent. The Review has spawned a large network of industry leaders, among whom Andrew Granato and the Fortune respectively identify around 300 people who have worked for or received investment from Peter Thiel or Joe Lonsdale, another prominent editor-in-chief and Thiel's mentee. A number of Review alumni have also become public officials, beginning with Jay Bhattacharya and Paula M. Stannard who were editors during Thiel's time as editor-in-chief.<ref name="Granato"/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

After graduation, Thiel attended Stanford Law School, graduating in 1992 with a Juris Doctor degree.<ref name="Paypal,-Inc-Jan-2002-S-1/A">Template:Cite web</ref> While at Stanford, Thiel met René Girard, whose mimetic theory influenced him.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Career

Early career

After graduating from Stanford Law School, Thiel was a law clerk to Judge James Larry Edmondson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit from 1992 to 1993.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Thiel then worked as a securities lawyer for Sullivan & Cromwell in New York. He left the law firm in under a year.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He then took a job as a derivatives trader in currency options at Credit Suisse in 1993 while also working as a speechwriter for former United States secretary of education William Bennett. Thiel returned to California in 1996.<ref name="BW01">Template:Cite news</ref>

Upon returning to the Bay Area, Thiel capitalized on the dot-com boom. With financial support from friends and family, he raised $1 million toward the establishment of Thiel Capital Management and embarked on his venture capital career. Early on, he experienced a setback after investing $100,000 in his friend Luke Nosek's unsuccessful web-based calendar project. Soon thereafter, Nosek's friend Max Levchin described to Thiel his cryptography-related company idea, which became their first venture called Fieldlink (later renamed Confinity) in 1998.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

PayPal

Template:Further With Confinity, Thiel realized they could develop software to bridge a gap in making online payments. Although the use of credit cards and expanding automated teller machine networks provided consumers with more payment options, not all merchants had the necessary hardware to accept credit cards. Thus, consumers had to pay with exact cash or check. Thiel wanted to create a type of digital wallet for consumer convenience and security by encrypting data on digital devices, and in 1999 Confinity launched PayPal.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

PayPal promised to open up new possibilities for handling money. Thiel viewed PayPal's mission as liberating people from the erosion of the value of their currencies due to inflation.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Refn

When PayPal launched at a press conference in 1999, representatives from Nokia and Deutsche Bank sent $3 million in venture funding to Thiel using PayPal on their PalmPilots. PayPal then continued to grow through mergers in 2000 with Elon Musk's online financial services company X.com, and with Pixo, a company specializing in mobile commerce. These mergers allowed PayPal to expand into the wireless phone market and transformed it into a safer and more user-friendly tool by enabling users to transfer money via a free online registration and email rather than by exchanging bank account information. PayPal went public on 15 February 2002 and was bought by eBay for $1.5 billion in October of that year.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Thiel remained CEO of the company until the sale.<ref name=":2">Template:Cite web</ref> His 3.7% stake in the company was worth $55 million at the time of acquisition.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In Silicon Valley circles, Thiel is colloquially referred to as the "Don of the PayPal Mafia".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Clarium Capital

Template:Further Thiel used $10 million of his proceeds to create Clarium Capital Management, a global macro hedge fund focusing on directional and liquid instruments in currencies, interest rates, commodities, and equities.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Thiel stated that "the big, macroeconomic idea that we had at Clarium—the idée fixe—was the peak-oil theory, which was basically that the world was running out of oil, and that there were no easy alternatives."<ref name=fortune/>

In 2003, Thiel successfully bet that the United States dollar would weaken.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite news</ref> In 2004, Thiel spoke of the dot-com bubble having migrated, in effect, into a growing bubble in the financial sector, and specified General Electric and Walmart as vulnerable. In 2005, Clarium saw a 57.1% return as Thiel predicted that the dollar would rally.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=":1" />

However, Clarium faltered in 2006 with a 7.8% loss. Thereafter, the firm sought to profit in the long-term from its petrodollar analysis, which foresaw the impending decline in oil supplies.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Clarium's assets under management grew after achieving a 40.3% return in 2007 to more than $7 billion by the first quarter of 2008, but fell later in the year and again in 2009 after financial markets collapsed.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> By 2011, after missing out on the economic rebound, many key investors pulled out, reducing the value of Clarium's assets to $350 million, two thirds of which was Thiel's money.<ref name=newyorker>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Palantir

Template:Further In May 2003, Thiel incorporated Palantir Technologies, a big data analysis company named after the Tolkien artifact.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He continues as its chairman, as of 2022.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=chair>Template:Cite web</ref> Thiel stated that the idea for the company was based on the realization that "the approaches that PayPal had used to fight fraud could be extended into other contexts, like fighting terrorism". He also stated that, after the September 11 attacks, the debate in the United States was "will we have more security with less privacy or less security with more privacy?". He envisioned Palantir as providing the government the technology to find terrorism without operating illegally.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Palantir's reputation is controversial. Although the software only analyzes data collected by the customers, some criticize it for enabling surveillance.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>Template:Refn<ref>Template:Britannica URL</ref> Professor Vasilis Galis notes that the software is not a mere tool, but shapes policing culture with new policing norms.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Refn

According to Geoff Shullenberger (managing director of Compact) and Moira Weigel (Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature, Harvard), Peter Thiel and Alex Karp built Palantir on the basis of their understanding of Leo Strauss and the Frankfurt School.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Facebook

After the first meeting with Zuckerberg in August 2004, Thiel made a $500,000 angel investment in the startup (then "a three-person dormroom") for a 10.2% stake in the company and joined Facebook's board. This was the first outside investment in Facebook and valued the company at $4.9 million. He also bought Zuckerberg a car.<ref name="lifeafterFacebook"/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The investment was originally in the form of a convertible note, to be converted to equity if Facebook reached 1.5 million users by the end of 2004. Although Facebook narrowly missed the target, Thiel allowed the loan to be converted to equity anyway.<ref name="kirkpatrick-thiel">Template:Cite book</ref> Thiel said of his investment: "I was comfortable with them pursuing their original vision. And it was a very reasonable valuation. I thought it was going to be a pretty safe investment."<ref name="kirkpatrick-thiel" /><ref name="G01">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="lifeafterFacebook">Template:Cite news</ref>

Facebook employees reported that Thiel's influence was unusual for a board member who was not also the CEO. Some criticized Thiel for pushing his mentee Zuckerberg and the company to the right.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Zuckerberg credited Thiel with helping him time Facebook's 2007 Series D, which closed before the 2008 financial crisis.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Facebook's initial public offering was in May 2012, with a market cap of nearly $100 billion ($38 a share), at which time Thiel sold 16.8 million shares for $638 million.<ref name="betabeat">Template:Cite web</ref> In August 2012, immediately upon the conclusion of the early investor lock-up period, Thiel sold almost all of his remaining stake for between $19.27 and $20.69 per share, or $395.8 million, for a total of more than $1 billion.<ref name="2012fb">Template:Cite news</ref> In 2016, he sold a little under 1 million of his shares for around $100 million. In November 2017, he sold another 160,805 shares for $29 million, putting his holdings in Facebook at 59,913 Class A shares.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> As of April 2020, he owned less than 10,000 shares in Facebook.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

On 7 February 2022, Thiel announced he would not stand for re-election to the board of Facebook owner Meta at the 2022 annual stockholders' meeting and would leave after 17 years in order to support pro–Donald Trump candidates in the 2022 United States elections.<ref name=chair /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Founders Fund

Template:Further In 2005, Thiel created Founders Fund, a San Francisco-based venture capital fund.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=insider-2023 /> Other partners in the fund include Sean Parker, Ken Howery, and Luke Nosek.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

The fund focuses on defense-related startups and technology.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> After Facebook, even though it was a big financial success, Thiel made the Founders Fund pivot to hard tech, with the reasoning that while companies like Twitter might have a high value, they would not take "civilization to the next level."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The Economist notes that the fund and Thiel, personally, have a history of incubating startups that do hypersensitive work related to national security. The fund casts Palantir, Anduril and the newly minted nuclear startup General Matter as the three parts of a trilogy, to which it hopes to add others, among which a plan for onshoring ultraviolet light lithography.<ref name="EcoGM">Template:Cite news</ref>

Business Insider reports that, among Thiel's inner circle (who know well the billionaire's fondness for Tolkien's works), the fund is nicknamed "the Precious", in reference to the One Ring of Sauron.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In addition to Facebook, the Founders Fund made early-stage investments in numerous startups, including Airbnb,<ref name=fortune/> Slide.com,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> LinkedIn,<ref name=fortune/> Friendster,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> RapLeaf, Geni.com, Yammer, Spotify,<ref name=fortune/> Practice Fusion, MetaMed, Vator, SpaceX,<ref name=fortune/> IronPort, Votizen, Asana, Big Think, CapLinked, Nanotronics Imaging, Powerset (Thiel is on the board of Nanotronics and Powerset<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>), Stripe, Bullish Global (the parent company Block.one had also received investment from Thiel <ref>Template:Cite news</ref>), AltSchool,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Trade Republic,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> PsiQuantum (photonic quantum computing),<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and Rigetti Computing (superconducting quantum computing).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Thiel also backed DeepMind, a UK start-up that was acquired by Google in early 2014 for £400 million.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Founders Fund is an important backer of the Berlin-based platform ResearchGate.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2017, Founders Fund bought about $15–20 million worth of bitcoin. In January 2018, the firm told investors that due to the cryptocurrency's surge the holdings were worth hundreds of millions of dollars.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Also in 2017, Thiel was one of the first outside investors in Clearview AI, a facial recognition technology startup that has raised concerns in the tech world and media for its risks of weaponization.<ref name=NYT2020-10-18>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2024, alongside General Catalyst and Red Cell Partners, the Founders Fund incubated the defense incubator Valinor Enterprises. The co-founders are former Palantir's senior vice president Julie Bush (CEO), Trae Stephens, General Catalyst's Paul Kwan and Red Cell's Grant Verstandig.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2024, the Founders Fund led a massive US$85 million seed round for the UAE's decentralized, open-source AI platform SentientAGI (Sentient Foundation), which seeks to challenge Perplexity and OpenAI's closed models as well as handle the problem of AI proliferation, which concentrates power in the hands of large players like Google and Amazon.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2024 it also invested in Impulse Space (in-space transportation services),<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Ramp,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Crusoe (AI infrastructure using clean energy).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2025, the Founders Fund invests in Erebor (a new digital bank which is founded by Palmer Luckey and has quickly reached a US$2 billion valuation),<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> EnduroSat (Bulgarian startup that produces Gen3 satellites at scale),<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Varda (space medicine and hypersonic testbed startup, founded by the Thiel Fellow Delian Asparouhov, Trae Stephens and Will Bruey, and incubated at the Founders Fund),<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Hadrian (defense manufacturing startup).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Anduril Industries

Template:Main Anduril is a defense hardware startup that was founded in 2017 by Palmer Luckey (who is Thiel's mentee), Joe Chen, Trae Stephens, Matt Grimm and Brian Schimpf (the latter three are Palantir and Founders Fund alumni).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The Founders Fund backed the company since its inception, leading its 2017 seed round. The $1 billion (part of the $2.5 billion Series G funding round) the Founders Fund invested in Anduril in June 2025 was the largest investment in the fund's history.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In December 2024, it was reported that Palantir and Anduril were forming a consortium of new generation defense companies (which included SpaceX, OpenAI, Scale AI, Saronic Technologies and others) that they would lead in order to challenge the dominance of traditional defense companies.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In July 2025, when the Trump administration's budget bill included a provision that required border surveillance towers to be "tested and accepted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to deliver autonomous capabilities", Edith Olmsted of The New Republic made the criticism that the government favoured Peter Thiel's business, as the provision (which only Anduril fulfilled) effectively ruled out Anduril's rivals, namely General Dynamics and the Israeli-based Elbit Systems.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

General Matter

Template:Main General Matter emerged from stealth in April 2025, focusing on "production and handling of High-Assay, Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU)."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Scott Nolan, who formerly worked for SpaceX, left the Founders Fund to focus on the company and become the CEO, Thiel is also on the company's board of directors, which is noted by the Economist to be a rare occurrence these days.<ref name="EcoGM"/> The plant in Paducah, built by General Matter, will be the "first privately developed US uranium enrichment facility".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Valar Ventures

Template:Further Valar Ventures is an internationally focused venture firm Thiel cofounded with Andrew McCormack and James Fitzgerald in 2010.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Valar's portfolio includes TransferWise (now Wise), reforestation-funding finance platform Treecard, fintech startup Atoa (Wise, Treecard and Atoa are based in London),<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Miami-headquartered Novo and Fortú (digital bank which focuses on underbanked Latino and Hispanic communities),<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> fintech unicorn Qonto, fintech startup Hero, accounting automation software startup Regate (all three are Paris-based),<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Vienna-based crypto unicorn Bitpanda,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Lagos- and London-based banking startup Kuda Bank,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Indonesian fintech startup Bukuwarung,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Nigerian banking platform Maplerad,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Mexican banking startup Albo,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> banking unicorn N26, B2B paytech Mondu, spend management platform Moss, tax filling unicorn Taxfix, instant payment API startup Ivy (N26, Mondu, Moss, Taxfix and Ivy are all Berlin-based; Ivy is founded by the Thiel Fellow Ferdinand Dabitz),<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Dubai-based fintech startup Baraka.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Valar also invested in New-Zealand based companies including in the software firm Xero,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> undersea communication company Pacific Fibre<ref name="BI">Template:Cite web</ref> and e-reader platform Booktrack.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Recent investments include Arkansas-based Panacea Financial (digital fintech for medical practitioners),<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Riyadh-based SILQ ("largest B2B commerce platform across the Gulf and South Asia", resulted from the recent merger between Bangladesh-based Shop-Up and Saudi-based Sary),<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Canadian startup Neo (fintech),<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> London-based fertility care startup Gaia.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Thiel Capital

Template:Main Thiel Capital is a venture capital fund founded by Thiel in 2011 and based in Los Angeles, also referred to as Thiel's family office.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> It provides "strategic and operational support" for many of Peter Thiel's initiatives and ventures.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> It incubated and launched Founders Fund, Mithril, Valar, the Thiel Fellowship and Breakout Labs, and also sponsors Crescendo Equity Partners.<ref name="Bridgetown">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The firm's investments include Alloy Therapeutics (with Founders Fund and 8VC),<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> EnClear Therapies (Jason Camm became a board member in 2020),<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> the German unicorn ATAI Life Sciences (found by Thiel's friend, the biotech billionaire Christian Angermayer; Jason Camm also became a director in 2020),<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Compass Pathways (also partly owned by ATAI),<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Pilgrim (dual-use biotech startup founded by Thiel Fellow Jake Adler),<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Hugoboom,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Rhea,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Bullish Global (Founders Fund and Angermeyer are also investors),<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> FTX (also received investment from Rivendell LLC),<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> QA Wolf,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Rollup (software platform to develop complex hardware),<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Neros (military drone startup found by Thiel Fellow Soren Monroe-Anderson),<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Regent Craft (electric seaglider, invested together with Founders Fund).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Thiel Capital is also an investor (including post-IPO financial investment as major backer) of the dual-use German laser communications startup Mynaric. Angermayer also backs Mynaric.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Hugoboom's app 28 requires users to input the first day of their last period to calculate the menstrual phases. The app's pro-life rhetoric and scientific basis is controversial.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Some of the firm's notable (past) employees include former Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz, American politician and entrepreneur Blake Masters, Kevin Harrington (Senior Director for Strategic Planning at the United States National Security Council) and Michael Kratsios.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Quantum-Systems and Stark

Thiel Capital's investment in the Gilching-based drone startup Quantum-Systems as well as Thiel's subsequent backing of the Berlin-based attack drone startup Stark are sometimes considered controversial, due to Thiel's politics.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In May 2025, Quantum-Systems became Europe's first dual-use unicorn and third defense unicorn, after fellow Bavarian startup Helsing and the Portuguese Tekever (Thiel has a role in the success of Helsing too and the startup is considered a part of the "Thiel ecosystem", although he does not directly invest in it).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Thiel's mentee Moritz Döpfner brokered the deal with Quantum-Systems on Thiel's behalf and sits on its board. His venture fund Doepfner Capital also invests in Stark.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Mithril Capital

In June 2012, he launched Mithril Capital Management, named after the fictitious metal in The Lord of the Rings, with Jim O'Neill and Ajay Royan. Unlike Clarium Capital, Mithril Capital, a fund with $402 million at the time of launch, targets companies that are beyond the startup stage and ready to scale up.<ref name=latimes-mithril>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=techcrunch-mithril>Template:Cite news</ref>

Thiel holds shares in the space-based intelligence company BlackSky through Mithril.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It also invests in Helion Energy.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

1517 Fund

The 1517 Fund was founded in 2015 by Danielle Strachman and Michael Gibson, who were both in the founding team of the Thiel Fellowship. The fund provides cash grants and investments, aiming at extending the support already granted by the Thiel Fellowship. It targets "dropouts, renegade students, and deep tech scientists". Peter Thiel backs the fund.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Its portfolio companies include Luminar Technologies, Loom, Inc., Atom Computing and Durin Mining Technologies among others.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

America's Frontier Fund

Thiel is the co-founder of America's Frontier Fund, together with Eric Schmidt. The New York Times writes that, America's Frontier Fund is an organization committed to bring manufacturing back to the US, especially that of semiconductors, and the leaders are determined to carry out this mission whether the state helps them or not.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> InfluenceWatch notes the fund's bipartisan character, with the participation of Ashton B. Carter and H.R. McMaster and the fact that the two founders are left and right-of-center respectively. The chief executive is Gilman Louie.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In December 2024, it got approval to get funding from the Small Business Investment Company Critical Technology Initiative (SBICCT), which is "a joint effort by the U.S. Small Business Administration and the Department of Defense."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In July 2025, it reportedly raised US$315 million for its first fund.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

It backs Venus Aerospace, a company develops hypersonic flight using rotating detonation rocket engine (since November 2024) and Foundation Alloy.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

The fund is characterized by Intelligence Online as "China-sceptic".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Rivada Space Networks

Around the early 2020s, the Bavarian startup Kleo-Connect successfully developed a highly advanced satellite technology, which is considered much more suitable for governmental and military use than that of Starlink, which was originally conceived for civilian use only. It was feared the technology would fall into the hand of the PLA through its Chinese investors (who invested in the startup since 2018) though. Thus, the German government banned the sale of the company to China, but 144 lawsuits worldwide deterred investors from helping the company to expand the constellation. The founders decided to bring in the US's "highest conservative circles" (which led to the formation of Rivada Space Networks, which drew its personnel mainly from Kleo-Connect, in 2022), among which Karl Rove participated as an investor and lobbyist, and former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo joined the board of the mother company in the US, alongside others like Richard Myers, Jeb Bush, James Loy, Lord Guthrie and the Democrat Martin O'Malley. Rivada Networks's chairman Declan Ganley notes in particular the power of Thiel's name (whose investment in the firm remains undisclosed) in negotiation with investors.<ref>Template:Cite news Alt URL</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The United States Department of Defense is also an investor.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Newt Gingrich is noted to have lobbied for the firm too.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> By 2025, the "politically connected company" has already expanded to 33 countries and collected 16 billion dollars in investments, despite having not launched its satellites (deployment is set to begin in 2027 with initial tests set for 2026).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Thiel reportedly works to help the company's development, especially regarding its legal battles.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

SNÖ Ventures

Thiel is an investor and strategic partner of the Oslo-based SNÖ Ventures, having joined the firm in 2021, accompanied by a group of international strategic advisors.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2024, the fund made its first investment in the defense tech sector, an early funding for the Swedish startup Nordic Air Defence, which developed counter-drone missile technology and is staffed with former employees from Palantir and Quantum Systems.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Arctic Today sees this as an evidence of Sweden's strong transatlantic bond which is "seeping into defence", which is also shown in Daniel Ek's Prima Materia's investment in Helsing (which is a strategic partner of Palantir), which happened three months before Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Elevat3

In 2020, Thiel became a strategic partner and anchor investor of Elevat3, which is set up by Christian Angermayer's Apeiron Investment Group to invest in startups in German-speaking countries. The fund focuses on "life sciences, deep tech, fintech (financial technology), property and insurance". The fund has a partnership with the Founder Fund.<ref name="HandelsblattHerz"/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2020, Thiel invested into the Neunkirchen-based startup Neodigital through the fund.<ref name="HandelsblattHerz">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The fund also backs other European startups such as the London-based aggregator startup Olsam.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2022, through Elevat3 and in partnership with the Founders Fund, the Apeiron Group bought shares from the Chinese Fosun International and others to become a shareholder in the Hamburg-based NAGA Group.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Thiel also holds shares in Template:Ill (which will be renamed as SQD.AI Strategies AG), the first dedicated German crypto holding treasury, through the firm.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Crescendo Equity Partners

Seoul-based Crescendo Equity is a private equity firm which focuses on mid-cap manufacturing and technology companies in Asia.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> According to the official website, "Crescendo was established in 2012 with the sponsorship of Peter Thiel".<ref name="LinkedIn profile">Template:Cite web</ref> The fund is co-founded by Peter Thiel, Matt Danzeisen (who serves as a member of its investment committee and representative to selected portfolio companies),<ref name="Bridgetown"/> Andy Lee (company chairman), Matt Price (CEO) and Slava Zhakov (CTO). The president is Anand Chandrasekaran. General Catalyst is also heavily involved in its financing and organization.<ref name="Chosun"/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The fund invests in Line Next (a unit of the Line Corporation), a joint venture between Softbank and Naver.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The Business Korea credits Crescendo Equity Partners with transforming Korea's HPSP, which it invested in since 2017, into a global player in the semiconductor equipment sector. In 2025, Crescendo initiated the sale of its 40.9% controlling equity stake in the semiconductor firm, often dubbed Korea's ASML. The three major global PEF firms, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), Carlyle, and Blackstone, which are dubbed the "big three buyout funds", have submitted their bids.<ref name="Chosun">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The firm also plays an important role in the Korean semiconductor industry through investments and support of other companies like Template:Ill, Template:Ill.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and Movensys (originally known as Soft Servo Group or Soft Motions & Robotics; the name was changed to Movensys in 2021 after Crescendo's investment).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The firm also invests in companies that make metal equipment, including Seojin System and Model Solution.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Pronomos Capital

Thiel began to explore investing in charter cities on land after his interest in seasteading faded.<ref name= "BloombergProspera">Template:Cite news</ref> Thiel is the anchor backer of Pronomos Capital, a firm "set up like a venture capital fund" that seeks to establish experimental, semi-autonomous cities in vacant lands, with acceptance from the countries involved. The founder of the firm is Patri Friedman.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Projects backed by the firm include Próspera in Honduras.<ref name= "NYTProspera">Template:Cite news</ref> The Próspera project attracted companies like Oklo Inc. (nuclear startup backed by Thiel's Mithril<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and Sam Altman) and biotech startups, but led to legal struggles when the new Honduran government changed the laws in 2022.<ref name= "BloombergProspera"/><ref name= "NYTProspera"/>

Praxis and controversies in Denmark

Praxis is a company that seeks to establish a new city-state and has explored Greenland as a possible location.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2025, when the Danish government was integrating Palantir into the country's military, police and intelligence services, a major argument put forth by opponents was that the Praxis project (backed by Thiel through Pronomos) was a threat to Greenland. Other arguments were concerned with Thiel's politics in the US and Palantir's association with American and other European intelligence services, as well as the security risk that might arise from handing citizens' data to Palantir. The Danish National Police answered with a reference to a 2021 response to the Folketing, but otherwise, the Police, the Danish Security and Intelligence Service and Minister of Justice Peter Hummelgaard refused to comment on the matter.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Thiel Bio

The firm was found in 2023 by Jason Camm (Chief Medical Officer of Thiel Capital). The regulatory filing does not disclose the name of the single investor who provides US$100 million or Thiel's involvement beyond the use of his name.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The fund has invested in Ataraxis AI and EnClear Therapies together with the Founders Fund.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Reports about investments in October 2025 (infection therapeutics company Peptilogics and cancer treatment startup HistoSonics) confirm that the firm is Thiel's. Hannes Holste from Thiel Capital is a partner.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Rivendell companies

Thiel owns multiple entities named Rivendell, such as Rivendell One LLC, Rivendell 7 and Rivendell 25. Rivendell 7 and Rivendell 25 are personal investment vehicles, which are also used to hold Palantir shares.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> ProPublica reports that Thiel’s $1,700 PayPal investment and later investments In Palantir and Facebook through a Roth IRA had grown tax-free to over $5 billion by 2019. The Roth was held in Rivendell Trust since 2018.<ref>Template:Cite web </ref> Thiel bankrolled the satellite imaging startup HySpecIQ, known for serving government agencies but struggling financially, through Rivendell Fund.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Rivendell entities are known to participate in his German or Korean investments.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Other business enterprises

According to a 2020 article from Bloomberg, Thiel was at the time an investor in funds managed by 8VC and in the bank Disruptive Technology Advisers.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> A 2017 Globe and mail article names Thiel as a limited partner at Social Capital.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He also sponsored Sam Altman's first venture fund, Hydrazine Capital as well as J.D.Vance's Narya.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He also backs Doepfner Capital, the venture fund of Moritz Döpfner, the son of Mathias Döpfner.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He funded 90% of Zeev Ventures's first fund and has backed it ever since.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The Founders Fund was also a backer of the second fund of the Indonesia-focused Intudo. The involvement helped Intudo to validate its mission.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Founders Fund is also among the backers of the Israel-based Mensch Capital.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Thiel also backs the Singaporean venture investment firm Syfe Group through Valar.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The Founders Fund also invested in the Seattle-based private equity fund Privateer Holdings in 2015, thereby becoming the first institutional investor in the cannabis industry.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

His first investment in a hedge fund managed by an outside manager was made in 2011: the firm was Grandmaster Capital Management, founded by Patrick Wolff, former Clarium and Thiel Macro executive.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Also in 2011, he backed the second fund of Joshua Kushner's Thrive Capital.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2019, Thiel, together with Mark Cuban and Marc Andreessen, backed the San Francisco-based crypto investment fund 1Confirmation.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Thiel gives backing to Vivek Ramaswamy's financial firm Strive Asset Management, also described as an activist fund. The firm aims to free "corporate America" of what they deem to be "stakeholder capitalism" ESG mandates created by the three companies BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street and accuse them of causing the energy crisis. The firm does not deny climate science.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2021, Thiel backed the first fund of A-Star Partners, founded by Kevin Hartz, former partner at Founders Fund.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2022, he backed B2B-focused Wischoff Ventures founded by solo GP Nichole Wischoff.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Thiel is also a major backer of the venture debt firm Tacora, founded by Keri Findley.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Its inaugural fund in 2022 raised US$350 million in total, including US$250 million from Thiel. Bloomberg comments that, "It's an unusually large investment for Thiel, the size of which hasn't been previously reported." Findley was originally an associate of Danzeisen, whom she met because she and Thiel Capital both invested in SoFi. Thiel agreed to fund her after she discussed the idea with him at a casual dinner.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Alexandra Ulmer and Joseph Tanfani from Reuters remark that Thiel was an instrumental force behind the creation of 1789 Capital, which was co-founded in 2022 by Omeed Malik and Christopher Buskirk, a confidant of Thiel's. Blake Masters is also a board member. The fund is intended to create a "parallel economy", a network that combines "businesses, media outlets and political organizations" associated with the America First movement. In 2024, it recruited Donald Trump Jr. as a partner.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

He personally invests in Quora (leading its Series B),<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Reddit,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and nuclear startup Seaborg Technologies (now Saltfoss Energy).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

AbCellera

He served on AbCellera's board from 2020 to 2024, when he resigned for personal reasons. Both sides stated that there was no disagreement, with Thiel saying that he was proud to have helped the company and AbCellera's founder Carl Hansen thanking him for his mentorship.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He also retains his stake in the company, as of November 2024.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Y Combinator

In March 2015, Thiel joined Y Combinator as one of 10 part-time partners.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In November 2017, it was reported that Y Combinator had severed its ties with Thiel.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Enhanced Games

In 2024, Thiel became the lead funder of the Enhanced Games, a proposed multi-sport event that will allow athletes to use performance-enhancing substances without being subject to drug tests.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="swimswam">Template:Cite news</ref> The founder is the Australian lawyer Aron D'Souza, who came to know and become Thiel's confidant in the process of leading the Gawker case for him. Angermayer, who was introduced to D'Souza by Thiel, also invested, even though, as per Wired, Thiel and Angermayer were not normally interested in sports.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The startup agrees to cover legal expenses for any clean athletes who participate in the event and are banned from mainstream competitions as a result.<ref name="swimswam"/>

Carbyne

In 2018, the Founders Fund invested in the Israeli company Carbyne (emergency service).<ref name="Reason"/>

Leaked emails (released by the hacker group Handala, which "likely operates out of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence", according to Reuters<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>) show that in 2014, businessman and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein leveraged his relationship with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to get access to Thiel.<ref name="Reason">Template:Cite news</ref> Epstein arranged for Barak to meet Thiel in New York on June 9, 2014. In 2016, Epstein pitched Reporty (later Carbyne) to Valar, but the proposal got rejected on account of being premature (Epstein invested in total 40 million in Valar in 2015 and 2016.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>). Valar's McCormack said they would try to reengage when the startup was more developed. In 2018, the Founders Fund joined Carbyne's $15 million Series B.<ref name="Reason"/>

Thiel said that the subsequent interactions with Epstein following their introduction in 2014 were due to the fact Epstein was a "crazed networker". One of the people introduced to Thiel by Epstein was the Russian diplomat Vitaly Churkin, who died in 2017.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Byline Times suggests that Epstein was one of the important contact points that Thiel has used to build an extensive political network in the UK, which has entangled itself with parties across political spectrum and exerted significant influence on the current reigning Labour party, although there is no record of Thiel's social visits to Epstein's homes or flights on his jet.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Documents (emails and schedules) reviewed by The Wall Street Journal in 2023 show that others, including Woody Allen and Obama's advisor Kathryn Ruemmler participated in the meetings between Thiel and Epstein. Reid Hoffman, Thiel's friend from the PayPal Mafia and a big Democratic donor was the one who directly introduced Thiel to Epstein (For years Epstein acquaintances had tried to invite Thiel to meet Epstein but were rejected) and also participated.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Documents from the US House of Representatives showed Epstein invited him to his private island in 2018. A spokesperson for Thiel said he never visited the island.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2025, Snopes criticized a claim on the internet that Epstein offered girls to Thiel and others as misleading by omitting context.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Journalist<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Whitney Webb claims Palantir is a CIA front, and links Thiel to the CIA, Mossad, and Epstein's alleged plan for an "Orwellian nightmare." Webb has shared these theories via the Chinese website of MintPress NewsTemplate:Sndknown for being part of the "Russian web of disinformation"<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Sndand Trineday, a publisher founded by conspiracy theorist<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Kris Millegan.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs lists her as a MintPress journalist.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Gawker lawsuit

Template:Main In May 2016, Thiel confirmed in an interview with The New York Times that he had paid $10 million in legal expenses to finance several lawsuits brought by others, including a lawsuit by Terry Bollea (Hulk Hogan) against Gawker Media for invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and infringement of personality rights after Gawker made sections of a sex tape involving Bollea public.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The jury awarded Bollea $140 million, and Gawker announced it was permanently closing due to the lawsuit in August 2016.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Thiel referred to his financial support of Bollea's case as one of the "greater philanthropic things that I've done."<ref name="Gawker">Template:Cite news</ref>

Thiel said he was motivated to sue Gawker after they published a 2007 article publicly outing him, headlined "Peter Thiel is totally gay, people." Thiel stated that Gawker articles about others, including his friends, had "ruined people's lives for no reason," and said, "It's less about revenge and more about specific deterrence."<ref name="Gawker" /> In response to criticism that his funding of lawsuits against Gawker could restrict the freedom of the press, Thiel cited his donations to the Template:Not a typo to Protect Journalists and stated, "I refuse to believe that journalism means massive privacy violations. I think much more highly of journalists than that. It's precisely because I respect journalists that I do not believe they are endangered by fighting back against Gawker."<ref name="Gawker" /> Owen Thomas, the author of the Gawker article, stated that he did not think it was an outing in the conventional sense, as Thiel had been open about his homosexuality, but the "strangely conservative" Silicon Valley had refused to talk about it. Thiel said that the problem was less about the outing itself, but the troubles it caused with regard to his business in Saudi Arabia and his parents.Template:Sfn

On 15 August 2016, Thiel published an opinion piece in The New York Times in which he argued that his defense of online privacy went beyond Gawker.<ref name="nytimesopedonlineprivacyaugust15">Template:Cite news</ref> He highlighted his support for the Intimate Privacy Protection Act and said that athletes and business executives have the right to stay in the closet as long as they want to.<ref name="nytimesopedonlineprivacyaugust15" />

In an open letter to Thiel after losing the case, Gawker's Nick Denton accused Thiel of making them "stripped naked", together with the warning "in the next phase, you too will be subject to a dose of transparency. However philanthropic your intention, and careful the planning, the details of your involvement will be gruesome."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Later though, in 2025, Denton said that Thiel was right and did him a favor in forcing the sale of Gawker Media.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Views and political activities

File:Thiel vs. Graeber (15106550347).jpg

Peter Thiel and David Graeber discussing technology, democracy and the future in 2014<ref name="Schuessler">Template:Cite news</ref>

Philosophical views

Thiel is described by different authors and media sources in different ways.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Hodgkinson">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He identifies as a libertarian.<ref name=":3"/> He has been called an Ayn Rand libertarian,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> plutocratic reactionary,<ref name="Heer 06302025">Template:Cite news</ref> militarist techno-libertarian,Template:Sfn and libertarian authoritarian.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> His attitude towards democracy has been described as democracy-skeptic,<ref name="lemonde1">Template:Cite news</ref> partly antidemocratic,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> or post-democratic.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> French economist Yann Algan links Peter Thiel and Elon Musk to the concept of "liquid democracy" and the rise of libertarian AI governance, which Algan defines as "a radically decentralized, algorithm-driven democracy", which "prioritizes efficiency and individual freedom over democratic safeguards".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Thiel's biographer Max Chafkin notes that his thinking is a mix of libertarianism and authoritarianism, but describes what Thiel truly believes and wants as a mystery.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Thiel describes himself as a political atheist.<ref name="Schuessler"/> He opines that trying to radically alter the current U.S. government is unrealistic. He also suggests that Curtis Yarvin methods will lead to Xi's China or Putin's Russia.<ref name="Gellman1"/> He does not deny the value of statemanship though,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Refn but opines that "people should spend less time trying to change the system than simply creating things outside it".<ref name="Schuessler"/>

Journalist Murad Ahmed from Financial Times calls Thiel "philosopher king at the very top of Silicon Valley" (with France 24 using a similar description).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk also remarks: "Peter Thiel can be seen as more of a philosopher king. He acts very coolly and strategicallyTemplate:Snda dazzling figure, far outside our left-liberal perception patterns",<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> while Ross Douthat from New York Times describes him as "most influential right-wing intellectual of the last 20 years".Template:Sfn Commenting on Douthat's description, Luke Munn of the University of Queensland notes that, "Thiel's influence on politics is at once financial, technical and ideological [...] his potent cocktail of networks, money, strategy and support exerts a rightward force on the political landscape."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2025, the author Template:Ill wrote an article for Die Zeit, describing Thiel's theories as obscure and incoherent at first glance, but often displaying an accurate intuition, while noting that both the man and his ideas "simultaneously fascinates, repels, and outrages."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Later the author René Martens wrote on Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, criticizing Mangold and Die Zeit for masking their admiration with pseudo-criticism and called Thiel a disciple of Carl Schmitt.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2009, The Guardian stated that Thiel was a member of the neoconservative, Reaganite/Thatcherite "TheVanguard.org". The outlet said Thiel believes the Enlightenment led humanity from nature's rule to a world where nature has been conquered, and also noted Thiel's philosophy disregarded art, beauty, love, pleasure, and truth.<ref name="Hodgkinson"/>

The Guardian linked Thiel's investment in projects like the Singularity Institute to his belief in life-extension technologies as an escape from humanity's "nasty, brutish, and short" life. It criticized him for seeking to replace the natural world with a virtual one.<ref name="Hodgkinson"/>

Vadym Kovalenko notes that during the 90s and 2000s, Silicon Valley followed the spirit of Steve Jobs, who saw technology as art. But later this has translated into Thielism, which emphasizes "truth, the ideal, ontology" and matters like flying to Mars, curing aging and creating a new world over the superficiality. Kovalenko sees Thiel as a humanitarian Über-artist.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

On the question of exotericism versus esoteticism, Paul Leslie writes that in "The Straussian moment", Thiel tries to "weave together Schmitt's political theology—with its emphasis on the friend/enemy distinction—and Strauss's advocacy for esoteric wisdom and hidden hierarchies."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In the article "Exotericism and the Untroubled Race for the Future", Thiel discerns between ancient esotericism, in which "thrice-great Hermes revealed his magical recipes only to a few" and "modern esotericism of grantwriting". He remarks, though, that exotericism takes time, and Goethe was "perhaps [...] the last human being to command the sum total of human knowledge."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Writing for the Quarterly Journal of Speech in 2024, James Rushing Daniel wrote that:<ref name="Daniel 2025">Template:Cite journal</ref>

According to Daniel, Thiel has financially supported the intellectual wing of "the reactionary, traditionalist turn of conservative politics" termed by some as "the New Right".<ref name="Daniel 2025"/> The Nation notes that he advocates "for a dramatic, right-wing political turn to address technological stagnation".<ref name="Heer 06302025"/>

Nick Land attributed Thiel's 2009 essay "The Education of a Libertarian" and statement that "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible" as a watershed moment in the development of the Dark Enlightenment movement.<ref name="Daniel 2025"/> Patrick Zarrelli argues the quote is misread as anti-democratic, when Thiel's real concern is that mass democracy could erode the freedoms essential for innovation, but notes that Thiel underestimates the limits of technocracy like lack of democratic accountability. Zarelli remarks that Thiel has partially realized his philosophy: "By aligning technology with national priorities like defense modernization, pandemic response, and intelligence fusion. He has built parallel governance inside the state itself.", and notes that critics call Thiel a "shadow oligarch". Zarelli opines that a solution might be a hybrid form between technocracy and democracy.Template:Sfn

Italian professor Giuliano da Empoli opines that Thiel represents the alliance between the post-modern Silicon Valley and the archaic Trump, that threatens democracy. The author recognizes that the Silicon Valley actors are gifted and have the means to govern more efficiently than democratic institutions in some respects. He argues that humanity must not respond to post-modern tech leaders like the Aztecs did to the conquistadors, but must instead make deliberate choices about which areas should still prioritize democratic decision-making, even at the risk of less efficient outcomes. In his book L'Empire de l'ombre, Da Empoli echoes the sentiment of Thiel's quote, "Darker questions still emerge in these dusky final weeks of our interregnum," interpreting the "apocalypse" not as the end of the world, but as a sudden unveiling of forces that had long been taking shape beneath the surface.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Blue Labour founder Maurice Glasman (who first met Thiel at Oxford, where Glasman rebuked Thiel's description of the British Empire as the Antichrist) denounces Thiel's view on democracy but defends leftist politicians' interaction with Thiel, saying that parties which have no place in the AI conversation will be out of the game very fast.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Danish politician Template:Ill dismisses Dagbladet Information's description of Thiel as a Prussian warhorse (preussisk kamphest) or a bigot tech prince who would bring the end of democracy or the world, calling him "a smart European who finds better opportunities in the U.S.", and criticizes European intellectuals' fear of new technology.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Jacob Silverman noted that Thiel's actual political work drifted away from libertarianism, but it remained his intellectual guiding star.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Jack Nicastro of Reason notes that Thiel's solution for "the dangers of government overreach and a one-world state" is "surprisingly libertarian".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

George A. Dunn believes that Thiel is the pathbreaker in connecting the thoughts of Girard and Strauss to debates on the origins of modernity.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>

Political views

Template:Libertarianism US Thiel is a self-described conservative libertarian.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Since the late 2010s, he has espoused support for national conservatism,<ref name="natcon">Template:Cite news</ref> and criticized economically liberal attitudes towards free trade<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> and big tech.<ref name="natcon" /> Thiel advocates that companies should avoid competition and attention, and try to develop into monopolies by creating something new, dominate a niche market before expanding into slightly broader markets. He notes that years or even decades of profits can come from such specific markets.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In The Straussian Moment, Thiel notes that, "Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to womenTemplate:Sndtwo constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertariansTemplate:Sndhave rendered the notion of 'capitalist democracy' into an oxymoron." After the statement caused controversies, he replied that, he had made a "commonplace statistical observation about voting patterns that is often called the gender gap", and that women's right to vote was not under siege nor would taking it away solve any problem, but people should focus on projects outside of voting and politics.<ref name=":3">Template:Cite news</ref> Adam Rogers contends that this essay has prefigured the Department of Government Efficiency project.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In the 2025 Douthat interview, Thiel stated that, "Reagan was consumer capitalism, which is oxymoronic. You don't save money as a capitalist; you borrow money. And Obama was low-tax socialismTemplate:Sndjust as oxymoronic as the consumerist capitalism of Reagan." .Template:Sfn

In 2021, Thiel wrote an article for Die Welt, claiming that the extreme political experiments of fascism and communism in the 20th century had led Germany to fear extremism in both politics and technology. However, as "the decisive arena for the future of the West", being the land of poets and thinkers would not be enough for Germany in the new era. He criticized "green quietism" and opined that new ideas could be dangerous but would be the source of growth.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In a 2015 conversation with Tyler Cowen, Thiel claimed that innovative breakthroughs were happening in computing/IT and not the physical world. He lamented the lack of progress in space travel, high-speed transit, and medical devices. As a cause for the discrepancy, he said: "I would say that we lived in a world in which bits were unregulated and atoms were regulated."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

On international relations

The Founders Fund and Khosla Ventures are backers of the Hill & Valley Forum, a group that is described by the Wall Street Journal as an anti-China alliance between Silicon Valley and Capitol Hill.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In an article named Silicon soldiers of fortune, the China Daily, the channel of the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> identifies Thiel, Palmer Luckey and Jacob Helberg as tech hawks who are increasingly shaping the US policy towards China.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The Xinhua News Agency, China's official state news agency,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> states that Palantir and its leaders like Thiel and Vice President Wendy R. Anderson as well as other companies like Anduril and Saronic Technologies, as representatives of "the new military industrial complex", are an unpredictable danger to the US and the international community.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The tech-focused outlet 36Kr though praises his long-term vision and methods in breaking down the traditional barriers in the US military-industrial complex and government sector, and his contribution to leading startups like Palantir, Anduril and SpaceX.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The Brazilian newspaper Brasil de Fato (described by The New York Times as part of a "global web of Chinese propaganda"<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>) portrays Thiel as "the brightest anti-communist in the US", part of the anti-China brigade, "the leader of the tech-based section of the military-industrial complex" as well as "the most geo-politically strategic tech billionaire" and "the most dangerous non-state figure in the world today". According to Brasil de Fato, among all the capitalists, Thiel has the strongest grip on the National Security Council.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2019, Thiel called Google "seemingly treasonous" and urged a government investigation, citing Google's work with China and asking whether DeepMind or Google's senior management had been "infiltrated" by foreign intelligence agencies.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2025, Thiel called for a drastic reset in economic relations with China, stressing that economic relations should be viewed from a geopolitical standpoint as well.<ref>Template:Cite episode Minute 26 – 28: "We really need a drastic reset with China [...] But it is the geopolitical rivalry in the background that the economists are never able to factor in properly with China."</ref> In an discussion with Peter Robinson, he opined that the US should not let itself be stuck between two extreme views about China (that China itself encourages to promote an attitude of political inaction towards them): "It's China is super weak, and China is super strong. And I've been in meetings in China where in some sense you got both messages within 20 minutes of one another, and it's like logically inconsistent but psychologically it doubles up."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2024, Palantir became a strategic partner of Israel in military technology in an occasion both Thiel and Karp visited the country.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In a 2024 interview with Bari Weiss, Thiel advocated cooperation with Israel to deter Iran from getting nuclear weapons: Template:Blockquote

Regarding the Russia-Ukraine war, he opined that "the relentless NATO expansion might not have been a good idea", but the US could not simply retreat from Ukraine, because it would become a rout.<ref name= "Weiss"/>

In 2025, writing for the Singapore-based think tank ThinkChina, Artyom Lukin, a leading Russian expert on Asia-Pacific geopolitical issues,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> wrote that Thiel, whom Lukin described as "the éminence grise of Trump's own deep state" and "the most anti-China figure in the US top elite", together with his allies, were pushing the American geostrategy towards focusing on China (a country Thiel saw as "a half fascist, half communist gerontocracy" with "a socialism of a nationalistic sort, and [...] extremely racist.") as the paramount threat. Lukin noted that Thiel had little sympathy for Russia, but viewed it as a lesser threat and did not want to push Moscow towards Beijing's arms.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

According to The Intercept, Thiel is the source of the warrior culture in Silicon Valley, one focused on an arms race with China, although the anti-China sentiment is found on both sides of the political spectrum.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Alex Karp notes that Palantir has a warrior culture, which values excellence over money.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Political activism

Thiel is a member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> a gathering of intellectual figures, political leaders, and business executives,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> characterized as focused on defense and espionage,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> as well as Atlanticist and Europhile.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Thiel's outsized influence at the gathering has been noted.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Thiel, together with Auren Hoffman, is also the founder of Dialog, which is often compared to Bilderberg, but focuses more on tech. It does not share the lists of participants but is known to have invited American tech and political leaders, as well as intellectual heavyweights, on both sides of the political spectrum, as well as representatives from Europe and Middle East. Past topics included "AI's energy demands, the future of health care, and political realignments" and "caring for aging parents, love, mental health and the afterlife."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Palantir is partner of the World Economic Forum, but Thiel has not gone to the meeting since 2013, because he considers it a place without individuals – there are only representatives of companies, governments and NGOs. He opines that some types of global governance might work, but it is necessary to have dissenting views.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The Thiel Foundation is a supporter of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which promotes the right of journalists to report the news freely without fear of reprisal.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Beginning in 2008, Thiel has donated over $1 million to the CPJ.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He is also a supporter of the Human Rights Foundation, which organizes the Oslo Freedom Forum.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="thestreet">Template:Cite news</ref> In 2011 he was a featured speaker at the Oslo Freedom Forum, and the Thiel Foundation was one of the event's main sponsors.<ref name="thestreet" /> He also backs the Alliance of Democracies Foundation founded by Anders Fogh Rasmussen.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Thiel has supported mostly conservative gay rights causes such as the American Foundation for Equal Rights and GOProud.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He invited conservative columnist and friend Ann Coulter to Homocon 2010 as a guest speaker.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Coulter later dedicated her 2011 book, Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America, to Thiel.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="coulter280">Template:Cite book</ref> In 2012, Thiel donated $10,000 to Minnesotans United for All Families, in order to fight Minnesota Amendment 1<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> that proposed to ban marriage between same-sex couples there.

In 2009, it was reported that Thiel helped fund James O'Keefe's "Taxpayers Clearing House" video—a satirical look at the Wall Street bailout.<ref name="Thrasher">Template:Cite news</ref> O'Keefe went on to produce the ACORN undercover sting videos; Thiel denied involvement in the ACORN sting.<ref name="Thrasher" />

In July 2012, Thiel made a $1 million donation to the Club for Growth, a fiscally conservative 501(c)(4) organization, becoming the group's largest contributor.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He is a major backer of the conservative Rockbridge Network, which is now an international network with Asian branches.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2023, Business Insider reported that Thiel became an FBI informant in 2021. Business Insider also noted the fact that politicians sponsored by Thiel, including Vance and Masters, had repeatedly attacked the FBI and its leadership in public.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> According to former FBI agent Jonathan Buma, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and David Sacks have been targets of Russian intelligence. Buma notes that Thiel cooperated with the FBI to identify the foreign espionage network.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

He visited president of Argentina and fellow libertarian Javier Milei three times in 2024. The Noticias de América Latina y el Caribe (NODAL) remarks that the cooperation between Thiel and Milei marks the political alignment between Argentina and Washington and Silicon Valley, also through organizations like Endeavor. According to NODAL, the introduction of Argentina into Thiel's network is erasing traditional politics while promoting a tech-based order which increases efficiency but also puts sovereignty at stake.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Matt Stoller, research director of American Economic Liberties Project, remarks that Thiel is a "really smart nihilist", and notes that his focus is entirely on power. Thiel's biographer Max Chafkin writes that this is a likely explanation for Thiel's activities.Template:Sfn

In 2017, Thiel reportedly refused the offer to become chairman of the president's intelligence advisory board, despite Trump's urging.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In the same year, there were reports that he considered becoming U.S.Ambassador to Germany or a bid for governorship of California. At the time, he said that he was not interested in a full-time job in politics.<ref name="cnbc.com">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2024, he said that he had gotten used to tech and a full-time job as a politician would lead to depression.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="cnbc.com"/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Support for political candidates

Thiel is a member of the Republican Party.<ref name="DW">Template:Cite web</ref> He contributes to both Libertarian and Republican candidates and causes. In December 2007, Thiel endorsed Ron Paul for President in the 2008 United States presidential election.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> After Paul failed to secure the Republican nomination, Thiel contributed to the John McCain campaign.<ref name="Political Campaign Contributions">Peter Thiel Political Campaign Contributions (CampaignMoney.com)

• Template:Cite news
• Template:Cite news
• Template:Cite news
• Template:Cite news
• Template:Cite news
• Template:Cite news
• Template:Cite news
• Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2010, Thiel supported Republican Meg Whitman in her unsuccessful bid for the governorship of California. He contributed the maximum allowable $25,900 to the Whitman campaign.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2012, Thiel, along with Nosek and Scott Banister, put their support behind the Endorse Liberty Super PAC. Collectively they gave $3.9 million to Endorse Liberty, whose purpose was to promote Ron Paul.<ref name="Reuters">Template:Cite news</ref> After Paul again failed to secure the nomination in the 2012 United States presidential election, Thiel contributed to the Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan presidential ticket of 2012.<ref name="Political Campaign Contributions" />

Thiel initially supported Carly Fiorina's campaign during the 2016 GOP presidential primary elections.<ref name="ABC">Template:Cite news</ref> After Fiorina dropped out, Thiel supported Donald Trump and became one of the California delegates for Trump's nomination. He was a headline speaker during the 2016 Republican National Convention, during which he announced that he was proud to be gay, Republican, and American, for which the assembled Republicans cheered.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On 15 October 2016, Thiel announced a $1.25 million donation in support of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Thiel stated to The New York Times: "I didn't give him any money for a long time because I didn't think it mattered, and then the campaign asked me to."<ref name=":5">Template:Cite web</ref> After Trump's victory, Thiel was named to the executive committee of the president-elect's transition team.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2017, Gavin Newsom (then lieutenant governor of California), whose campaign and marijuana legalization effort Thiel had supported, noted that Thiel cared deeply about criminal justice reform and had done a lot of behind-the-scene good work on marriage equality, which he was also passionate about. Newsom remarked, though, that "None of us are jumping up and down that he's aligned himself with President Donald Trump."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

By February 2022, Thiel was one of the largest donors to Republican candidates in the 2022 election campaign. By November 2022 he had spent 32 million. He supported 16 senatorial and congressional candidates. Two of said senatorial candidates (Blake Masters (who lost his race) and later U.S. Vice President JD Vance) were also tech investors who had previously worked for Thiel.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2023, Barton Gellman of The Atlantic wrote in an article interviewing Thiel that Thiel "has lost interest in democracy" and that "he wouldn't be giving money to any politician, including Donald Trump, in the next presidential campaign". According to Reuters this occurred after he disagreed with the Republican party's focus on cultural issues.<ref name="Gellman1">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In the same Atlantic interview, he stated that the first Trump administration failed even his initial low expectations.Template:Sfn In 2024, he described Trump as a clown whom Reid Hoffman's lawsuit turned into a martyr.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2025, when interviewed by Ross Douthat, Thiel indicated that Trump and the populists were a disruptive factor that would prepare the stage for the process of true rebuilding (in 2023, he also opined that Trump's election would "slash regulations, crush the administrative stateTemplate:Sndbefore the country could rebuild"). He stressed that the support of large parts of the Silicon Valley for Trump was not pro-Trump in nature. He stated that disruption did not equal progress, and even his thought of trying to having a conversation with Trump about it (in Trump's first term) later proved "a preposterous fantasy". But he was satisfied about the fact that in the second term, deregulation was happening, for example regarding nuclear energy.<ref name="Douthat Thiel Anti NYT">Template:Cite news</ref>Template:Sfn

Thiel has his own political-action committee, Free Forever, which is committed to supporting political candidates who support stricter border control, restrictive immigration policy, funds for veterans, and anti-interventionist foreign policy, among other things.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> According to OpenSecrets, the PAC was active only during the 2020 election cycle and then only in support of Kansas attorney general Kris Kobach's failed U.S. Senate bid. The campaign by Kobach, who lost in the Republican primary, had received almost all of its contributions from Thiel himself.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2025, Brendan Glavin, director of insights for OpenSecrets, remarked that Thiel's political donations have "an ideological agenda that's not strictly motivated by financial or business concerns [...] His views are libertarian generally, and he wants to elect people who are like minded."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Philanthropy

Thiel carries out most of his philanthropic activities through the Thiel Foundation.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Research

Artificial intelligence

In 2006, Thiel provided $100,000 of matching funds to back the Singularity Challenge donation drive of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (now known as the Machine Intelligence Research Institute), a nonprofit organization that promotes the development of friendly artificial intelligence.<ref name="singular">Template:Cite web</ref> He provided half of the $400,000 matching funds for the 2007 donation drive, and as of 2013 the Thiel Foundation had donated over $1 million to the institute.<ref name="singular" /> Additionally, he has spoken at multiple Singularity Summits.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref name="hplus">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> At the 2009 Singularity Summit, he said his greatest concern is the technological singularity not arriving soon enough.<ref name=hplus/>

In December 2015, OpenAI, a nonprofit company aimed at the safe development of artificial general intelligence, announced that Thiel was one of its financial backers.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Life extension

In September 2006, Thiel announced that he would donate $3.5 million to foster anti-aging research through the non-profit Methuselah Mouse Prize foundation.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He gave the following reasons for his pledge: "Rapid advances in biological science foretell of a treasure trove of discoveries this century, including dramatically improved health and longevity for all. I'm backing Dr. [Aubrey] de Grey, because I believe that his revolutionary approach to aging research will accelerate this process, allowing many people alive today to enjoy radically longer and healthier lives for themselves and their loved ones." As of February 2017, he had donated over $7 million to the foundation.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

When asked "What is the biggest achievement that you haven't achieved yet?" by the moderator of a discussion panel at the Venture Alpha West 2014 conference, Thiel said he wants to make progress in anti-aging research.<ref name="Reilly2014">Template:Cite news</ref> Thiel also said that he is registered to be cryonically preserved, meaning that he would be subject to low-temperature preservation in case of his legal death in hopes that he might be successfully revived by future medical technology, and is signed up with the Alcor Life Extension Foundation.<ref name=Brown2014/>

Thiel has expressed interest in the science of parabiosis, including young blood transfusion for potential health benefits.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> He said in a 2016 Inc. interview that the technology had been found to work on mice before being strangely dropped after the 1950s.<ref name="inc2016">Template:Cite magazine</ref> The same Inc. article reported that the Thiel Capital medical director Jason Camm had contacted the transfusion startup Ambrosia,<ref name="inc2016"/> but its founder Jesse Karmazin told TechCrunch in a 2017 article that they had never been contacted by Thiel or Thiel Capital.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In a 2022 Jacobin article, Ben Burgis characterizes the blood transfusion story as part of a deliberate attempt by Thiel to portray himself as an "evil genius".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Seasteading

On 15 April 2008, Thiel pledged $500,000 to the newly created non-profit Seasteading Institute,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> directed by Patri Friedman, whose mission is "to establish permanent, autonomous ocean communities to enable experimentation and innovation with diverse social, political, and legal systems."<ref name="tsi20080415">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> At one of the institute's conferences, he described seasteading as "one of the few technological frontiers that has the promise to create a new space for human freedom."<ref>Floating Island Project Pushes On, Without Peter Thiel's Support Template:Webarchive Bloomberg</ref> In 2011, Thiel gave $1.25 million to the Seasteading Institute,<ref>Milton Friedman's Grandson to Build Floating Libertarian Nation Template:Webarchive Chicago</ref><ref>Peter Thiel's Strangest Projects Template:Webarchive Inverse</ref> but resigned from its board the same year.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In a 2017 interview with The New York Times, Thiel said seasteads are "not quite feasible from an engineering perspective" and "still very far in the future".<ref name=":5" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Thiel Fellowship

Template:Main On 29 September 2010, Thiel created the controversial Thiel Fellowship, which annually offers them a total of $100,000 (raised to $200,000 since 2025<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>) over two years to 20 people under the age of 23 in order to spur them to drop out of college and create their own ventures.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> According to Thiel, many young people choose college simply because they're unsure of what else to do with their lives.<ref name=Brown2014/> He envisions a future system that offers different paths for different people, and believes that change in the university system will require external pressure ("Reformation") before any internal willingness to adapt can arise.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite episode</ref>

Breakout Labs

In November 2011, the Thiel Foundation announced the creation of Breakout Labs, a grant-making program intended "to fill the funding gap that exists for innovative research outside the confines of an academic institution, large corporation, or government."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="naturebl">Template:Cite web</ref> It offers grants of up to $350,000 to science-focused start-ups, "with no strings attached".<ref name="forbesbl">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="techcrunchbl">Template:Cite web</ref> In April 2012, Breakout Labs announced its first set of grantees.<ref name=naturebl/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In total, 12 startups received funding, for a total of $4.5 million in grants.<ref name=forbesbl/> One of the first ventures to receive funding from Breakout Labs was 3Scan, a tissue imaging platform.<ref name=techcrunchbl/>

Breakout Ventures is a privately held venture capital firm founded in 2016 out of Breakout Labs to invest in science.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Based in San Francisco, California, it invests in early-stage companies in technology, biology, and chemistry focused on human health and sustainability.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The program focuses on biotech with a mix of hardware. Its partners include Founders Fund, Formation 8, OATV, Lux Capital, Khosla Ventures among others.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Some of its recent investments include Noetik (cancer treatment),<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Phantom Neuro (neurotechnology).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Corpernic Catalysts (catalysts for ammonia production),<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> EnPlusOne Biosciences (RNA therapeutics),<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Passkey Therapeutics (synergistic multifunctional therapeutics),<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Cytovale (medical diagnostics).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Other causes

In 2011, Thiel made a NZ$1 million donation to an appeal fund for the casualties of the Christchurch earthquake.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In Girard's honour, he has established the Imitatio project (part of the philanthropic Thiel Foundation), which aims to "supports research, education, and publications building on Rene Girard's mimetic theory."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Personal life

Thiel resided in San Francisco, California, until 2018, when he moved to Los Angeles. He had criticized San Francisco for being "intolerant of conservatives, insular and overpriced".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Both Thiel Capital and Thiel Foundation followed him to Los Angeles, but the Founders Fund remains in San Francisco. Mithril's headquarters moved to Austin.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=insider-2023 />

Thiel married his long-time partner, Matt Danzeisen, in Vienna, Austria, on Thiel's 50th birthday (October 2017), when he was reported to have proposed to Danzeisen.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Danzeisen started his career as an investment banker at Bank of America Securities.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> By 2007, when the couple were dating, Danzeisen was vice president of BlackRock. By 2021, he was chairman of Bridgetown 1 and Bridgetown 2, sponsored by Thiel Capital and Richard Li's Pacific Century Group. Sam Altman also sat on the board.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Danzeisen also participates in other Thiel enterprises related to the family of Li Ka-shing (father of Richard Li), such as the Malta-based EUM.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2017 Danzeisen was working as head of private investments at Thiel Capital, with a primary focus on North America and Asia.<ref name=express>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Thiel and Danzeisen have two young daughters, aged five and three as of June 2024, born through a surrogate.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Adrian Wooldridge from Bloomberg reported in August 2025 that Thiel had four children.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2023, in an interview with the Atlantic, Thiel noted that Danzeisen had tried to dissuade him from donating money to Republicans.Template:Sfn

Thiel was in a long-term relationship with model Jeff Thomas until Thomas's suicide in March 2023. Media coverage of Thomas's death drew widespread attention, partly because of Thomas's involvement with Democratic researchers led by David Brock and Jack Bury.<ref name="intercept1">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Puck wrote that the anti-Thiel campaign exposed an undercurrent in modern politics in which there is an increasing tendency towards using people's private problems to achieve political goals.<ref name="puck">Template:Cite news</ref>

Religious views

Thiel is a self-described Christian and a promoter of René Girard's Christian anthropology.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Girard, a Catholic, explained the role of sacrifice and the scapegoat mechanism in resolving social conflict, which appealed to Thiel as it offered a basis for his Christian faith without the fundamentalism of his parents.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Thiel grew up in an evangelical household but, as of 2011, described his religious beliefs as "somewhat heterodox", stating: "I believe Christianity is true but I don't sort of feel a compelling need to convince other people of that."<ref name=newyorker/> According to Thiel, "Christianity for me is the anti-identity. Your identity is in Christ [...] and it's in that context we can figure out things about the world and truth [...] [Truth] is not a social construct."<ref name="vatortv"/> Thiel has participated in Veritas Forum events with the theologian N. T. Wright discussing religion, politics, and technology.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Thiel opines that wokeism or "the woke religion" is a type of secular religion, which is "in some ways [...] anti-Christian and some ways [...] hyper-Christian" and fills the void of a weakened Church because people are attached to post-Christian values rather than a "rationalist, atheist" worldview. He notes that wokeism has a concept of the original sin as well as demands confession and repentance, while offering no transcendental values, no forgiveness or chance of redemption through sacrifice.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Minakov">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He claims that this strand of thinking, which attacks Christians for not doing enough for victims or the poor, is a continuation of communism and the social gospel, which also inherit some Christian characteristics while being anti-Christian at the same time.<ref name="vatortv">Template:Cite news</ref> Mikhail Minakov writes that "Thiel's conception of will integrates Christian eschatology, Girardian mimetic theory, and Straussian elitism to critique the impotence of liberal democracy while proposing the efficiency of a techno-feudal alternative."<ref name="Minakov"/> Elke Schwarz, a professor of political theory, notes that Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen are the foremost proponents of techno-eschatology, which demonstrates the sacralizing of AI and uses spiritualism to bolster the logic of venture capitalism.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Thiel opines that, "Crypto is decentralizing, AI is centralizing. Or, if you want to frame it more ideologically, crypto is libertarian and AI is communist."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

A topic Thiel is interested in is the Antichrist, Armageddon and Apocalypse, about which he has given talks in multiple events, including a September 2025 series of off-the-record private lectures organized by David Wood's Acts 17 Collective in San Francisco,<ref name="Thiel Antichrist 2025-08-27">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="dwnar">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="bloombergchafkin">Template:Cite news</ref> which drew a group of protesters.<ref name="sfs-16sep2025">Template:Cite news</ref> Thiel opines that different people are worried about different apocalyptic threats like environment degradation, nuclear wars or bioweapons. He recognizes these as credible threats, but sees a total one-world government as closer to the Antichrist.<ref name="Klein">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He sees humanity as facing the double threats of the Antichrist and the Armageddon, which is the collapse of civilization through global warfare. He sees salvation in the figure of the Katechon, a mysterious force that restrains the Antichrist.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Schiffer">Template:Cite news</ref> He has referred to individuals, organizations, communism or even anti-tech regulations as precursors of the Antichrist.<ref name="Schiffer"/><ref name="Klein"/><ref name="Duran">Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref name="bloombergchafkin"/> Different commentators see his Antichrist theory as a narrative to highlight the role of a hero,<ref name="dwnar"/> or a framework to attack political opponents<ref name="Duran"/> or an attempt to brand himself as tech's free thinker (who has also touched on topics such as the Kennedy assassination, Epstein's crimes or aliens).<ref name="bloombergchafkin"/> Kayla Carman from the Russian Strategic Culture Foundation writes that the hero Thiel describes is implied to be Thiel himself, and states that Thiel, "auditioning for a role in a cosmic drama that no one asked him to star in", will never be this savior of civilization he aspires to be and the true Katechon should be "our collective refusal to be restrained" by billionaire philosopher kings.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> German scholar Adrian Daub, Professor of German and Comparative Literature at Stanford University, describes the lectures as "amateurish talks" and a desperate effort from a man with immense power and full of contradiction to disassociate himself from his own power and even his attempts to be understood.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Professor Matthew Avery Sutton, representing the Washington State University, notes that Thiel is sincere in his interest in Christianity and draws from serious sources, but suggests that leaders should stop dressing their political theories in apocalyptic dress, because this will "raise anxieties, delegitimize compromise and insinuate that democratic deliberation is spiritually suspect".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Chess

Thiel began playing chess at the age of six<ref name=fortune>Template:Cite web</ref> and was at one time one of the top junior players in the United States.<ref name=":6" /><ref name=NYTchess>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He holds the title of Life Master,<ref name=USCF>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> but he has not competed since 2003.<ref name=DW/> On 30 November 2016, Thiel made the ceremonial first move in the first tiebreak game of the World Chess Championship 2016 between Sergey Karjakin and Magnus Carlsen.<ref name=NYTchess/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He said that he stopped trying to become better at chess, because once a certain level had been reached, chess created an alternate reality that made him lose sight of the real world.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Media appearances

Thiel is an occasional commentator on CNBC, having appeared on both Closing Bell with Kelly Evans, and Squawk Box with Becky Quick.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He has been interviewed twice by Charlie Rose on PBS.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He has also contributed articles to The Wall Street Journal, First Things, Forbes, and Policy Review, a journal formerly published by the Hoover Institution, on whose board he sits.

In The Social Network, Thiel was portrayed by Wallace Langham.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He described the film as "wrong on many levels".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> His distaste for the portrayal led to the establishment of the Thiel Fellowship on a whim.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Thiel was the inspiration for the Peter Gregory character on HBO's Silicon Valley.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Thiel said of Gregory, "I liked him [...] I think eccentric is always better than evil".<ref name="dowd20170111">Template:Cite news</ref>

Jonas Lüscher stated in an interview with Basellandschaftliche Zeitung that he based the character Tobias Erkner in his novel Kraft ("Force") on Thiel.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

After he hired former Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz (following scandals that led to Kurz's resignation) for Thiel Capital in 2022, Jan Böhmermann of the ZDF wrote and performed the satirical song Right time to Thiel that portrayed Thiel as a James Bond villain.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

New Zealand citizenship

Thiel was a German citizen by birth and became an American citizen by naturalization.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He received New Zealand citizenship in a private ceremony at the New Zealand consulate in Santa Monica, California, in August 2011; his citizenship status was not made public until 2017.<ref name="nz2011">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="cnbc">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="NYT">Template:Cite news</ref> Thiel had visited the country on four occasions prior to his application for citizenship,<ref name="econ">Template:Cite news</ref> staying a total of 12 days; the typical residency requirement is 1,350 days in five years.<ref name="nzherald2017">Template:Cite news</ref> When he applied, Thiel stated he had no intention of living in New Zealand, which is a criterion for citizenship.<ref name="intercept">Template:Cite web</ref> Then-Minister of Internal Affairs Nathan Guy waived those normal requirements, under an "exceptional circumstances" clause of the Citizenship Act.<ref name="nz2011" /><ref name="econ" /><ref name="intercept" />

Thiel's application cited his contribution to the economy—he had founded a venture capital fund in Auckland before applying, and had invested $7 million in two local companies—as well as a $1 million donation to the 2011 Christchurch earthquake appeal fund.<ref name="econ" /> Rod Drury, founder of Xero, also provided a formal reference for Thiel's application.<ref name="nz2011" /> Thiel's case was cited by critics as an example of how New Zealand passports can be bought,<ref name="econ" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> something the New Zealand government denied.<ref name="econ" /> At the time that his citizenship was revealed, The New Zealand Herald came out with the report that the New Zealand Defence Force, the Security Intelligence Service, and the Government Communications and Security Bureau have long-standing links with Thiel's Palantir.<ref name="nzherald2017"/>

In 2015, Thiel purchased a Template:Convert estate near Wānaka, which fit the classification of "sensitive land" and required foreign buyers to obtain permission from New Zealand's Overseas Investment Office. Thiel did not require permission, as he was a citizen.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Awards and honors

• In 2006, Thiel won the Herman Lay Award for Entrepreneurship.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• In 2007, he was honored as a Young Global leader by the World Economic Forum as one of the 250 most distinguished leaders age 40 and under.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• On 7 November 2009, Thiel was awarded an honorary degree from Guatemalan Universidad Francisco Marroquin.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• In 2012, Students For Liberty, an organization dedicated to spreading libertarian ideals on college campuses, awarded Thiel its "Alumnus of the Year" award.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• In 2018, German-American Heritage Foundation and Museum (GAHMUSA) honoured Thiel as Distinguished German-American of the Year.<ref name="GAHF"/>
• In 2021, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) gave him the Frank Schirrmacher prize, which typically honors intellectuals and artists for "outstanding achievements in understanding our current events." The awarding caused some controversies. The Frank Schirrmacher Foundation stated that, "By awarding Thiel the prize, his comprehensive work in analyzing the opportunities and risks of technological progress will be honored [...] disregarding prohibitions on thinking, he provides intellectual impulses and thus enriches the current socio-political discussions in a wide variety of fields."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Works

The Diversity Myth

In 1995, the Independent Institute published The Diversity Myth: Multiculturalism and the Politics of Intolerance at Stanford, which Thiel co-authored along with fellow tech entrepreneur David O. Sacks, and with a foreword by the late Emory University historian Elizabeth Fox-Genovese.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The book is critical of political correctness and multiculturalism in higher education and alleges that it has diluted academic rigor. The authors also argue that, " You don't have diversity when you gather people who look different but talk and think alike."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Refn

Thiel and Sacks's writings drew criticism from then-Stanford Provost Condoleezza Rice and then-Stanford President Gerhard Casper in describing Thiel and Sacks's view of Stanford as "a cartoon, not a description of our freshman curriculum",<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and their commentary as "demagoguery, pure and simple".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2016, Thiel apologized for two statements involving the rape crisis movement and date rape that he made in the book.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Zero to One

In spring 2012, Thiel taught the class CS 183: Startup at Stanford University.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Notes for the course, taken by student Blake Masters, led to a book titled Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Thiel and Masters, which was released in September 2014.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Derek Thompson, writing for The Atlantic, stated Zero to One "might be the best business book I've read". He described it as a "self-help book for entrepreneurs, bursting with bromides" but also as a "lucid and profound articulation of capitalism and success in the 21st century economy."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

"The Straussian Moment"

"The Straussian Moment" is an essay written by Thiel in 2004, sometimes considered to be a fundamental text in his political thinking and was the subject of a 2019 interview at the Hoover Institution. The essay draws on several thinkers and political theorists and argues that the September 11 attacks upset "the entire political and military framework of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries", and therefore "a reexamination of the foundations of modern politics" was needed.<ref name=":4" />

Others

One of Thiel's favorite books is The Sovereign Individual, which was a little-known work before he helped to popularize it.Template:Sfn He wrote the preface for the reprinted edition.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Thiel also has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss's self-help book Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers.

References

Bibliography

• Template:Citation

Further reading

• Thiel, Peter (October 3, 2011). "The End of the Future", National Review.
• Chafkin, Max (2021). The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power. New York: Penguin. Template:ISBN
• Template:Cite web

External links

• Template:C-SPAN
• Template:Twitter
• Template:LittleSisPerson