Peter Andreas Thiel (/tiːl/ⓘ; born 11 October 1967) is a German and American[1][2][3][4] entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist.[5][6][7] A co-founder ofPayPal,Palantir Technologies, andFounders Fund, he was the first outside investor inFacebook.[8][9] According toForbes, as of May 2025, Thiel's estimated net worth stood at US$20.8 billion, making him the 103rd-richest individual in the world.[10] Thiel has been described as "perhaps America's leading public intellectual today,"[11] or "intellectual architect of Silicon Valley's contemporary ethos".[12] Others debate the consistency or morality of his views.[13][N 1][15][16]
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 thenSouth West Africa,[17] before moving back to the US in 1977.[17] After graduating from Stanford, he worked as a clerk, asecurities lawyer, a speechwriter, and subsequently aderivatives trader atCredit Suisse. He founded Thiel Capital Management in 1996 and co-founded PayPal withMax Levchin andLuke Nosek in 1998. He was thechief executive officer of PayPal until its sale toeBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion.
Following PayPal, Thiel foundedClarium Capital, aglobal macrohedge fund based in San Francisco.[18] In 2003, he launched Palantir Technologies, abig data analysis company, and has been its chairman since its inception. In 2005, Thiel launched Founders Fund with PayPal partnersKen 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-foundedValar Ventures in 2010, foundedThiel Capital in 2011, co-foundedMithril Capital in 2012, was investment committee chair, in 2012, and was a part-time partner atY Combinator from 2015 to 2017.[19][20][21][22] He was grantedNew Zealand citizenship in 2011, which later became controversial in New Zealand.
Peter Andreas Thiel was born inFrankfurt am Main,Hesse, then part ofWest Germany, on 11 October 1967, to Klaus Friedrich Thiel and his wife Susanne Thiel.[23][24] The family emigrated to the United States when Peter was one year old and lived inCleveland, Ohio, where his father worked as achemical engineer.[5] Klaus worked for various mining companies, which created an itinerant upbringing for Thiel and his younger brother, Patrick Michael Thiel.[25] Thiel and his mother later naturalized as U.S. citizens, whereas his father did not.[24][26]
Before settling inFoster City, California, in 1977, the Thiel family lived inSouth Africa andSouth West Africa (modern-dayNamibia) in the time ofapartheid. Peter changed elementary schools seven times. He attended for two years a German-language school inSwakopmund that required students to wear uniforms and utilizedcorporal 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 forindividualism andlibertarianism.[27][28] The German community in Swakopmund was known at the time for its continued glorification ofNazism.[17] 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.[29]
Thiel studiedphilosophy atStanford University. The replacement of a "Western Culture" program at Stanford with a "Culture, Ideas and Values" course that addressed diversity andmulticulturalism prompted Thiel to co-foundThe Stanford Review, aconservative andlibertarian newspaper, in 1987. The paper received funding fromIrving Kristol.[34] Thiel wasThe Stanford Review's firsteditor-in-chief until he graduated in 1989. Thiel has maintained his relationship with the paper, consulting with staff and donating to the newspaper.[35] According toMarc Andreessen, Thiel's time at theReview marked the beginning of a career-long strategy: using provocative verbal cues – later delivered through talks, books and mottos – as a way to attract capable individuals to his projects, preferring this method over actively seeking out talent. TheReview has spawned a large network of industry leaders, among whom Andrew Granato and theFortune respectively identify around 300 people who have worked for or received investment from Peter Thiel orJoe Lonsdale, another prominent editor-in-chief and Thiel's mentee. A number ofReview alumni have also become public officials, beginning withJay Bhattacharya and Paula M. Stannard who were editors during Thiel's time as editor-in-chief.[35][36][37][38]
Upon returning to theBay Area, Thiel capitalized on thedot-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 friendLuke Nosek's unsuccessful web-based calendar project. Soon thereafter, Nosek's friendMax Levchin described to Thiel hiscryptography-related company idea, which became their first venture called Fieldlink (later renamedConfinity) in 1998.[45][46]
With Confinity, Thiel realized they could develop software to bridge a gap in making online payments. Although the use ofcredit cards and expandingautomated 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 launchedPayPal.[47]
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.[48][N 2]
When PayPal launched at a press conference in 1999, representatives fromNokia andDeutsche Bank sent $3 million in venture funding to Thiel using PayPal on theirPalmPilots. PayPal then continued to grow through mergers in 2000 withElon Musk's online financial services companyX.com, and withPixo, 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. PayPalwent public on 15 February 2002 and was bought byeBay for $1.5 billion in October of that year.[50] Thiel remained CEO of the company until the sale.[9] His 3.7% stake in the company was worth $55 million at the time of acquisition.[51] In Silicon Valley circles, Thiel is colloquially referred to as the "Don of thePayPal Mafia".[52]
Thiel used $10 million of his proceeds to createClarium Capital Management, aglobal macrohedge fund focusing on directional and liquid instruments in currencies, interest rates, commodities, and equities.[53] Thiel stated that "the big, macroeconomic idea that we had at Clarium—theidée fixe—was thepeak-oil theory, which was basically that the world was running out of oil, and that there were no easy alternatives."[31]
In 2003, Thiel successfully bet that the United States dollar would weaken.[54] In 2004, Thiel spoke of thedot-com bubble having migrated, in effect, into a growing bubble in the financial sector, and specifiedGeneral Electric andWalmart as vulnerable. In 2005, Clarium saw a 57.1% return as Thiel predicted that the dollar would rally.[55][54]
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.[56] Clarium'sassets 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.[57][58] 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.[59]
In May 2003, Thiel incorporated Palantir Technologies, abig data analysis company named after theTolkien artifact.[60] He continues as its chairman, as of 2022.[61][62] 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 theSeptember 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.[63][64]
Palantir's reputation is controversial. Although the software only analyzes data collected by the customers, some criticize it for enabling surveillance.[65][66][N 3][68] Professor Vasilis Galis notes that the software is not a mere tool, but shapes policing culture with new policing norms.[69][N 4]
According to Geoff Shullenberger (managing director ofCompact) and Moira Weigel (Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature, Harvard), Peter Thiel and Alex Karp built Palantir on the basis of their understanding ofLeo Strauss and theFrankfurt School.[71][72]
After the first meeting with Zuckerberg in August 2004, Thiel made a $500,000angel 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.[73][74] The investment was originally in the form of aconvertible 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.[75] 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."[75][76][73]
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.[77] Zuckerberg credited Thiel with helping him time Facebook's 2007 Series D, which closed before the2008 financial crisis.[78]
Facebook'sinitial 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.[79] 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.[80] 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.[81] As of April 2020, he owned less than 10,000 shares in Facebook.[82]
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 the2022 United States elections.[62][83]
The fund focuses on defense-related startups and technology.[86] 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."[87][88] TheEconomist notes that the fund and Thiel, personally, have a history of incubating startups that do hypersensitive work related to national security. The fund castsPalantir,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.[89]
Business Insider reports that, among Thiel's inner circle (who know well the billionaire's fondness forTolkien's works), the fund is nicknamed "the Precious", in reference tothe One Ring of Sauron.[90]
In 2017, Founders Fund bought about $15–20 million worth ofbitcoin. In January 2018, the firm told investors that due to the cryptocurrency's surge the holdings were worth hundreds of millions of dollars.[101]
Also in 2017, Thiel was one of the first outside investors inClearview AI, afacial recognition technology startup that has raised concerns in the tech world and media for its risks of weaponization.[102]
In 2024, alongsideGeneral 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.[103]
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.[104][105] In 2024 it also invested in Impulse Space (in-space transportation services),[106] Ramp,[107] Crusoe (AI infrastructure using clean energy).[108]
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),[109] EnduroSat (Bulgarian startup that produces Gen3 satellites at scale),[110] 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),[111][112] Hadrian (defense manufacturing startup).[113]
Anduril is a defense hardware startup that was founded in 2017 byPalmer Luckey (who is Thiel's mentee), Joe Chen,Trae Stephens, Matt Grimm and Brian Schimpf (the latter three are Palantir and Founders Fund alumni).[114][115] 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.[116][117] In December 2024, it was reported that Palantir and Anduril were forming a consortium of new generation defense companies (which includedSpaceX,OpenAI,Scale AI, Saronic Technologies and others) that they would lead in order to challenge the dominance of traditional defense companies.[118] 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 ofThe 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, namelyGeneral Dynamics and the Israeli-basedElbit Systems.[119][120]
General Matter emerged from stealth in April 2025, focusing on "production and handling of High-Assay, Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU)."[121] 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 theEconomist to be a rare occurrence these days.[89] The plant in Paducah, built by General Matter, will be the "first privately developed US uranium enrichment facility".[122]
Valar Ventures is an internationally focused venture firm Thiel cofounded with Andrew McCormack and James Fitzgerald in 2010.[123] Valar's portfolio includesTransferWise (now Wise), reforestation-funding finance platformTreecard, fintech startup Atoa (Wise, Treecard and Atoa are based in London),[124][125][126] Miami-headquartered Novo and Fortú (digital bank which focuses on underbanked Latino and Hispanic communities),[127][128] fintech unicorn Qonto, fintech startup Hero, accounting automation software startup Regate (all three are Paris-based),[129][130][131] Vienna-based crypto unicornBitpanda,[132] Lagos- and London-based banking startupKuda Bank,[133] Indonesian fintech startup Bukuwarung,[134] Nigerian banking platform Maplerad,[135] Mexican banking startup Albo,[136] banking unicornN26, 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),[137][138][139][140][141][142] Dubai-based fintech startup Baraka.[143] Valar also invested in New-Zealand based companies including in the software firmXero,[144] undersea communication companyPacific Fibre[145] and e-reader platformBooktrack.[146]
Recent investments include Arkansas-based Panacea Financial (digital fintech for medical practitioners),[147]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),[148] Canadian startup Neo (fintech),[149] London-based fertility care startup Gaia.[150]
Thiel Capital is aventure capital fund founded by Thiel in 2011 and based inLos Angeles, also referred to as Thiel's family office.[151][152] It provides "strategic and operational support" for many of Peter Thiel's initiatives and ventures.[153] It incubated and launched Founders Fund, Mithril, Valar, the Thiel Fellowship and Breakout Labs, and also sponsors Crescendo Equity Partners.[154][155]
The firm's investments include Alloy Therapeutics (with Founders Fund and 8VC),[156] EnClear Therapies (Jason Camm became a board member in 2020),[157] the German unicornATAI Life Sciences (found by Thiel's friend, the biotech billionaireChristian Angermayer; Jason Camm also became a director in 2020),[158]Compass Pathways (also partly owned by ATAI),[159] Pilgrim (dual-use biotech startup founded by Thiel Fellow Jake Adler),[160] Hugoboom,[161] Rhea,[162] Bullish Global (Founders Fund and Angermeyer are also investors),[163]FTX (also received investment from Rivendell LLC),[164] QA Wolf,[165] Rollup (software platform to develop complex hardware),[166] Neros (military drone startup found by Thiel Fellow Soren Monroe-Anderson),[167][168] Regent Craft (electric seaglider, invested together with Founders Fund).[169] 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.[170][171]
Hugoboom's app28 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.[172][173][174][175]
Thiel Capital's investment in the Gilching-based drone startupQuantum-Systems as well as Thiel's subsequent backing of the Berlin-based attack drone startupStark are sometimes considered controversial, due to Thiel's politics.[180][181][182] 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).[183][184][185][186] 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.[187][188][189][190]
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.[196][197][198]
Thiel is the co-founder of America's Frontier Fund, together withEric 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.[201]InfluenceWatch notes the fund's bipartisan character, with the participation ofAshton B. Carter andH.R. McMaster and the fact that the two founders are left and right-of-center respectively. The chief executive isGilman Louie.[202]
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 theDepartment of Defense."[203] In July 2025, it reportedly raised US$315 million for its first fund.[204]
It backs Venus Aerospace, a company develops hypersonic flight using rotating detonation rocket engine (since November 2024) and Foundation Alloy.[205][206][207][208]
The fund is characterized byIntelligence Online as "China-sceptic".[209]
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 ofRivada Space Networks, which drew its personnel mainly from Kleo-Connect, in 2022), among whichKarl Rove participated as an investor and lobbyist, and former US secretary of stateMike Pompeo joined the board of the mother company in the US, alongside others likeRichard Myers,Jeb Bush,James Loy,Lord Guthrie and the DemocratMartin O'Malley.Rivada Networks's chairmanDeclan Ganley notes in particular the power of Thiel's name (whose investment in the firm remains undisclosed) in negotiation with investors.[210][211] TheUnited States Department of Defense is also an investor.[212]Newt Gingrich is noted to have lobbied for the firm too.[213] 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).[214][215] Thiel reportedly works to help the company's development, especially regarding its legal battles.[216][217][218][219]
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.[220][221] 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.[222]Arctic Today sees this as an evidence of Sweden's strong transatlantic bond which is "seeping into defence", which is also shown inDaniel Ek's Prima Materia's investment inHelsing (which is a strategic partner of Palantir), which happened three months before Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.[223]
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.[224][225][226] In 2020, Thiel invested into theNeunkirchen-based startup Neodigital through the fund.[224][227] The fund also backs other European startups such as the London-based aggregator startup Olsam.[228] In 2022, through Elevat3 and in partnership with the Founders Fund, the Apeiron Group bought shares from the ChineseFosun International and others to become a shareholder in the Hamburg-basedNAGA Group.[229] Thiel also holds shares inHeidelberger Beteiligungsholding [de] (which will be renamed as SQD.AI Strategies AG), the first dedicated German crypto holding treasury, through the firm.[230]
Crescendo Equity Partners
Seoul-based Crescendo Equity is aprivate equity firm which focuses on mid-cap manufacturing and technology companies in Asia.[231][232]According to the official website, "Crescendo was established in 2012 with the sponsorship of Peter Thiel".[233] 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),[154] 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.[234][235][236] The fund invests in Line Next (a unit of theLine Corporation), a joint venture betweenSoftbank andNaver.[237] TheBusiness 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'sASML. The three major global PEF firms,Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR),Carlyle, andBlackstone, which are dubbed the "big three buyout funds", have submitted their bids.[234][238][239] The firm also plays an important role in the Korean semiconductor industry through investments and support of other companies likeHanmi Semiconductor [ko],Samyang NCchem [ko].[240] and Movensys (originally known as Soft Servo Group or Soft Motions & Robotics; the name was changed to Movensys in 2021 after Crescendo's investment).[241][242] The firm also invests in companies that make metal equipment, including Seojin System and Model Solution.[243]
Pronomos Capital
Thiel began to explore investing in charter cities on land after his interest in seasteading faded.[244] 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 isPatri Friedman.[245] Projects backed by the firm includePróspera in Honduras.[246] ThePróspera project attracted companies likeOklo Inc. (nuclear startup backed by Thiel's Mithril[247] and Sam Altman) and biotech startups, but led to legal struggles when the new Honduran government changed the laws in 2022.[244][246]
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.[248] 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. TheDanish National Police answered with a reference to a 2021 response to theFolketing, but otherwise, the Police, theDanish Security and Intelligence Service and Minister of Justice Peter Hummelgaard refused to comment on the matter.[249][250][251]
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.[252] The fund has invested in Ataraxis AI and EnClear Therapies together with the Founders Fund.[253][254] 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.[255][256]
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.[257][258][259]ProPublica reports that Thiel’s $1,700 PayPal investment and later investments In Palantir and Facebook through aRoth IRA had grown tax-free to over $5 billion by 2019. The Roth was held in Rivendell Trust since 2018.[260] Thiel bankrolled the satellite imaging startup HySpecIQ, known for serving government agencies but struggling financially, through Rivendell Fund.[261] Rivendell entities are known to participate in his German or Korean investments.[262][263][264]
Other business enterprises
According to a 2020 article fromBloomberg, Thiel was at the time an investor in funds managed by8VC and in the bank Disruptive Technology Advisers.[265] A 2017Globe and mail article names Thiel as a limited partner atSocial Capital.[266] He also sponsored Sam Altman's first venture fund, Hydrazine Capital as well as J.D.Vance's Narya.[267][268] He also backs Doepfner Capital, the venture fund of Moritz Döpfner, the son ofMathias Döpfner.[269][270] He funded 90% ofZeev Ventures's first fund and has backed it ever since.[271] The Founders Fund was also a backer of the second fund of the Indonesia-focused Intudo. The involvement helped Intudo to validate its mission.[272][273] Founders Fund is also among the backers of the Israel-based Mensch Capital.[274] Thiel also backs the Singaporean venture investment firm Syfe Group through Valar.[275] 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.[276]
His first investment in a hedge fund managed by an outside manager was made in 2011: the firm was Grandmaster Capital Management, founded byPatrick Wolff, former Clarium andThiel Macro executive.[277] Also in 2011, he backed the second fund ofJoshua Kushner'sThrive Capital.[278][279]
In 2019, Thiel, together withMark Cuban andMarc Andreessen, backed the San Francisco-based crypto investment fund 1Confirmation.[280]
Thiel gives backing toVivek 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 companiesBlackRock,Vanguard andState Street and accuse them of causing the energy crisis. The firm does not deny climate science.[281][282]
In 2021, Thiel backed the first fund of A-Star Partners, founded byKevin Hartz, former partner at Founders Fund.[283] In 2022, he backed B2B-focused Wischoff Ventures founded by solo GP Nichole Wischoff.[284]
Thiel is also a major backer of the venture debt firm Tacora, founded by Keri Findley.[285] 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 inSoFi. Thiel agreed to fund her after she discussed the idea with him at a casual dinner.[286][287]
Alexandra Ulmer and Joseph Tanfani fromReuters remark that Thiel was an instrumental force behind the creation of1789 Capital, which was co-founded in 2022 byOmeed 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 recruitedDonald Trump Jr. as a partner.[288][289]
He served onAbCellera'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.[293] He also retains his stake in the company, as of November 2024.[294]
Y Combinator
In March 2015, Thiel joinedY Combinator as one of 10 part-time partners.[295] In November 2017, it was reported that Y Combinator had severed its ties with Thiel.[296]
Enhanced Games
In 2024, Thiel became the lead funder of theEnhanced Games, a proposed multi-sport event that will allow athletes to useperformance-enhancing substances without being subject to drug tests.[297][298] 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 perWired, Thiel and Angermayer were not normally interested in sports.[299][300] 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.[298]
Leaked emails (released by the hacker group Handala, which "likely operates out of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence", according to Reuters[302]) show that in 2014, businessman and sex offenderJeffrey Epstein leveraged his relationship with former Israeli Prime MinisterEhud Barak to get access to Thiel.[301] 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.[303]). 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.[301]
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 diplomatVitaly Churkin, who died in 2017.[304]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 thecurrent reigning Labour party, although there is no record of Thiel's social visits to Epstein's homes or flights on his jet.[305][306]
Documents (emails and schedules) reviewed byThe Wall Street Journal in 2023 show that others, includingWoody Allen and Obama's advisorKathryn Ruemmler participated in the meetings between Thiel and Epstein.Reid Hoffman, Thiel's friend from thePayPal 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.[307] Documents from the US House of Representatives showed Epstein invited him tohis private island in 2018. A spokesperson for Thiel said he never visited the island.[308] In 2025,Snopes criticized a claim on the internet that Epstein offered girls to Thiel and others as misleading by omitting context.[309]
Journalist[310] 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 ofMintPress News – known for being part of the "Russian web of disinformation"[311][312][313] – and Trineday, a publisher founded by conspiracy theorist[314] Kris Millegan.[315][316][317] TheWashington Report on Middle East Affairs lists her as aMintPress journalist.[318]
In May 2016, Thiel confirmed in an interview withThe 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) againstGawker Media for invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and infringement of personality rights after Gawker made sections of asex tape involving Bollea public.[319] The jury awarded Bollea $140 million, and Gawker announced it was permanently closing due to the lawsuit in August 2016.[320] Thiel referred to his financial support of Bollea's case as one of the "greater philanthropic things that I've done."[321]
Thiel said he was motivated to sue Gawker after they published a 2007 article publiclyouting 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."[321] In response to criticism that his funding of lawsuits against Gawker could restrict thefreedom of the press, Thiel cited his donations to the Committee 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."[321] 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.[322]
On 15 August 2016, Thiel published an opinion piece inThe New York Times in which he argued that his defense of online privacy went beyond Gawker.[323] He highlighted his support for theIntimate Privacy Protection Act and said that athletes and business executives have the right to stay in the closet as long as they want to.[323]
In an open letter to Thiel after losing the case, Gawker'sNick 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."[324] Later though, in 2025, Denton said that Thiel was right and did him a favor in forcing the sale of Gawker Media.[325]
Views and political activities
Peter Thiel andDavid Graeber discussing technology, democracy and the future in 2014[326]
Philosophical views
Thiel is described by different authors and media sources in different ways.[327][328][329] He identifies as alibertarian.[330] He has been called anAyn Rand libertarian,[331] plutocratic reactionary,[332] militarist techno-libertarian,[333] andlibertarian authoritarian.[334] His attitude towards democracy has been described as democracy-skeptic,[16] partly antidemocratic,[335] or post-democratic.[336] French economistYann 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".[337]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.[338]
Thiel describes himself as a political atheist.[326] He opines that trying to radically alter the current U.S. government is unrealistic. He also suggests thatCurtis Yarvin methods will lead to Xi's China or Putin's Russia.[339] He does not deny the value of statemanship though,[340][N 5] but opines that "people should spend less time trying to change the system than simply creating things outside it".[326]
Journalist Murad Ahmed fromFinancial Times calls Thiel "philosopher king at the very top of Silicon Valley" (withFrance 24 using a similar description).[342][343] German philosopherPeter Sloterdijk also remarks: "Peter Thiel can be seen as more of a philosopher king. He acts very coolly and strategically – a dazzling figure, far outside our left-liberal perception patterns",[344] whileRoss Douthat fromNew York Times describes him as "most influential right-wing intellectual of the last 20 years".[345] 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."[346]
In 2025, the authorIjoma Mangold [de] wrote an article forDie 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."[347] Later the author René Martens wrote onMitteldeutscher Rundfunk, criticizing Mangold andDie Zeit for masking their admiration with pseudo-criticism and called Thiel a disciple ofCarl Schmitt.[348]
In 2009,The Guardian stated that Thiel was a member of theneoconservative,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.[328]
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.[328]
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.[349]
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—andStrauss's advocacy for esoteric wisdom and hidden hierarchies."[350] 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, andGoethe was "perhaps [...] the last human being to command the sum total of human knowledge."[351]
(...) "a rhetor ambitiously capitalizing on the material crises and political disillusionment of the day, defending a "cultural revolution" to put an end not just to the progressivism of the long 1990s but the values of collectivism and social justice and the remnants of social democracy and the Keynesian welfare state, replacing them with Randian individualism and the absolute dominance of the capitalist project."[352]
According to Daniel, Thiel has financially supported the intellectual wing of "the reactionary, traditionalist turn of conservative politics" termed by some as "theNew Right".[352]The Nation notes that he advocates "for a dramatic, right-wing political turn to address technological stagnation".[332]
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 theDark Enlightenment movement.[352] 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 "shadowoligarch". Zarelli opines that a solution might be a hybrid form between technocracy and democracy.[353]
Italian professorGiuliano 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 bookL'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.[354][355][356]
Blue Labour founderMaurice Glasman (who first met Thiel at Oxford, where Glasman rebuked Thiel's description of theBritish 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.[357] Danish politicianChristopher Arzrouni [da] dismissesDagbladet 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.[358][359]
Jacob Silverman noted that Thiel's actual political work drifted away from libertarianism, but it remained his intellectual guiding star.[360] Jack Nicastro ofReason notes that Thiel's solution for "the dangers of government overreach and a one-world state" is "surprisingly libertarian".[361]
George A. Dunn believes that Thiel is the pathbreaker in connecting the thoughts of Girard and Strauss to debates on the origins of modernity.[362]
Thiel is a self-describedconservative libertarian.[363] Since the late 2010s, he has espoused support fornational conservatism,[364] and criticizedeconomically liberal attitudes towardsfree trade[365] andbig tech.[364]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.[366]
InThe Straussian Moment, Thiel notes that, "Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women – two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians – have 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.[330] Adam Rogers contends that this essay has prefigured theDepartment of Government Efficiency project.[367]
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 socialism – just as oxymoronic as the consumerist capitalism of Reagan." .[345]
In 2021, Thiel wrote an article forDie 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.[368]
In a 2015 conversation withTyler Cowen, Thiel claimed that innovative breakthroughs were happening incomputing/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."[369]
On international relations
The Founders Fund and Khosla Ventures are backers of the Hill & Valley Forum, a group that is described by theWall Street Journal as an anti-China alliance between Silicon Valley and Capitol Hill.[370][371] In an article namedSilicon soldiers of fortune, theChina Daily, the channel of the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party,[372] identifies Thiel,Palmer Luckey andJacob Helberg as tech hawks who are increasingly shaping the US policy towards China.[373] TheXinhua News Agency, China's official state news agency,[374] 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.[375] The tech-focused outlet36Kr 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.[376] The Brazilian newspaperBrasil de Fato (described byThe New York Times as part of a "global web of Chinese propaganda"[377]) 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 toBrasil de Fato, among all the capitalists, Thiel has the strongest grip on theNational Security Council.[378]
In 2019, Thiel calledGoogle "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.[379]
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.[380] 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."[381]
In 2024, Palantir became a strategic partner of Israel in military technology in an occasion both Thiel and Karp visited the country.[382] In a 2024 interview withBari Weiss, Thiel advocated cooperation with Israel to deter Iran from getting nuclear weapons:
One of the lessons I take of the mid-20th century was every time a country got a nuclear weapon, we got a regional war. The Soviet Union gets the bomb in 1949. The Korean War starts in 1950 because when the Soviet Union backs North Korea, we can't bomb Russia. Then they can back North Korea with impunity, and we get a massive, massive regional war. That's, in a way, the price for being asleep at the switch and letting the Soviets get the bomb. 1964, Communist China gets the bomb. Vietnam War explodes in 1965. And again, China can back North Vietnam with impunity. We can't reciprocate. And the way I understand why would an Iranian nuclear bomb be a catastrophe? Because the degree to which Iran can support this plethora of bad actors, the Houthis, the Hamas people, and Hezbollah, and on and on throughout the Middle East, you could not retaliate against Iran [...] And so we don't have to go to the crazy theocracy that said they'd use the bomb and would use it.[383]
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.[383]
In 2025, writing for the Singapore-based think tank ThinkChina, Artyom Lukin, a leading Russian expert on Asia-Pacific geopolitical issues,[384] wrote that Thiel, whom Lukin described as "theéminence 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.[385]
According toThe 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.[386]Alex Karp notes that Palantir has a warrior culture, which values excellence over money.[387][388]
Thiel is a member of the Steering Committee of theBilderberg Group,[389] a gathering of intellectual figures, political leaders, and business executives,[390] characterized as focused on defense and espionage,[391] as well as Atlanticist and Europhile.[392] Thiel's outsized influence at the gathering has been noted.[393][394] Thiel, together withAuren 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."[395] Palantir is partner of theWorld 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.[396][397]
In July 2012, Thiel made a $1 million donation to theClub for Growth, a fiscally conservative501(c)(4) organization, becoming the group's largest contributor.[409]He is a major backer of the conservativeRockbridge Network, which is now an international network with Asian branches.[410]
In 2023,Business Insider reported that Thiel became anFBIinformant 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.[411][412] According to former FBI agentJonathan Buma, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk andDavid Sacks have been targets of Russian intelligence. Buma notes that Thiel cooperated with the FBI to identify the foreign espionage network.[413][414][415]
He visited president of Argentina and fellow libertarianJavier Milei three times in 2024. TheNoticias 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 likeEndeavor. According toNODAL, 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.[416][417]
Matt Stoller, research director ofAmerican 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.[418]
In 2017, Thiel reportedly refused the offer to become chairman of the president's intelligence advisory board, despite Trump's urging.[419][420] 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.[421][422] In 2024, he said that he had gotten used to tech and a full-time job as a politician would lead to depression.[423][421][424]
In 2010, Thiel supported RepublicanMeg Whitman in her unsuccessful bid for thegovernorship of California. He contributed the maximum allowable $25,900 to the Whitman campaign.[427]
Thiel initially supportedCarly Fiorina's campaign during the 2016 GOP presidential primary elections.[429] After Fiorina dropped out, Thiel supportedDonald Trump and became one of the California delegates for Trump's nomination. He was a headline speaker during the2016 Republican National Convention, during which he announced that he was proud to be gay, Republican, and American, for which the assembled Republicans cheered.[430][431] On 15 October 2016, Thiel announced a $1.25 million donation in support ofDonald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.[432]
Thiel stated toThe 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."[433] After Trump's victory, Thiel was named to the executive committee of the president-elect'stransition team.[434]
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."[435]
By February 2022, Thiel was one of the largest donors to Republican candidates in the2022 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 PresidentJD Vance) were also tech investors who had previously worked for Thiel.[436][437]
In 2023,Barton Gellman ofThe 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 toReuters this occurred after he disagreed with the Republican party's focus on cultural issues.[339][438] In the same Atlantic interview, he stated that the first Trump administration failed even his initial low expectations.[439] In 2024, he described Trump as a clown whomReid Hoffman's lawsuit turned into a martyr.[440] In 2025, when interviewed byRoss 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 state – before 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.[441][439]
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.[442][443] According toOpenSecrets, the PAC was active only during the2020 election cycle and then only in support of Kansas attorney generalKris Kobach's failedU.S. Senate bid. The campaign by Kobach, who lost in the Republican primary, had received almost all of its contributions from Thiel himself.[444][445][446]
In 2025, Brendan Glavin, director of insights forOpenSecrets, 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."[447]
Thiel carries out most of his philanthropic activities through the Thiel Foundation.[448][449]
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 theMachine Intelligence Research Institute), a nonprofit organization that promotes the development offriendly artificial intelligence.[450] 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.[450] Additionally, he has spoken at multipleSingularity Summits.[451][452][453] At the 2009 Singularity Summit, he said his greatest concern is thetechnological singularity not arriving soon enough.[452]
In December 2015,OpenAI, a nonprofit company aimed at the safe development ofartificial general intelligence, announced that Thiel was one of its financial backers.[454]
Life extension
In September 2006, Thiel announced that he would donate $3.5 million to fosteranti-aging research through the non-profitMethuselah Mouse Prize foundation.[455][456] 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 backingDr. [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.[457]
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.[458] Thiel also said that he is registered to becryonically 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 theAlcor Life Extension Foundation.[30]
Thiel has expressed interest in the science ofparabiosis, includingyoung blood transfusion for potential health benefits.[439][459] He said in a 2016Inc. interview that the technology had been found to work on mice before being strangely dropped after the 1950s.[460] The sameInc. article reported that the Thiel Capital medical director Jason Camm had contacted the transfusion startup Ambrosia,[460] but its founder Jesse Karmazin toldTechCrunch in a 2017 article that they had never been contacted by Thiel or Thiel Capital.[461] In a 2022Jacobin article, Ben Burgis characterizes the blood transfusion story as part of a deliberate attempt by Thiel to portray himself as an "evil genius".[462]
Seasteading
On 15 April 2008, Thiel pledged $500,000 to the newly created non-profitSeasteading Institute,[463] directed byPatri Friedman, whose mission is "to establish permanent, autonomous ocean communities to enable experimentation and innovation with diverse social, political, and legal systems."[464][465] At one of the institute's conferences, he describedseasteading as "one of the few technological frontiers that has the promise to create a new space for human freedom."[466] In 2011, Thiel gave $1.25 million to the Seasteading Institute,[467][468] but resigned from its board the same year.[469] In a 2017 interview withThe New York Times, Thiel said seasteads are "not quite feasible from an engineering perspective" and "still very far in the future".[433][470]
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[471]) 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.[472][473][474] According to Thiel, many young people choose college simply because they're unsure of what else to do with their lives.[30] 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.[475][476][477][478]
Breakout Labs
In November 2011, the Thiel Foundation announced the creation ofBreakout 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."[479][480] It offers grants of up to $350,000 to science-focused start-ups, "with no strings attached".[481][482] In April 2012, Breakout Labs announced its first set of grantees.[480][483] In total, 12 startups received funding, for a total of $4.5 million in grants.[481] One of the first ventures to receive funding from Breakout Labs was3Scan, atissue imaging platform.[482]
Breakout Ventures is a privately held venture capital firm founded in 2016 out ofBreakout Labs to invest in science.[484][485] Based inSan Francisco, California, it invests in early-stage companies in technology, biology, and chemistry focused on human health and sustainability.[486] The program focuses on biotech with a mix of hardware. Its partners include Founders Fund, Formation 8, OATV, Lux Capital, Khosla Ventures among others.[487] Some of its recent investments include Noetik (cancer treatment),[488] Phantom Neuro (neurotechnology).[489][490] Corpernic Catalysts (catalysts for ammonia production),[491][492] EnPlusOne Biosciences (RNA therapeutics),[493] Passkey Therapeutics (synergistic multifunctional therapeutics),[494][495] Cytovale (medical diagnostics).[496][497]
In Girard's honour, he has established theImitatio project (part of the philanthropic Thiel Foundation), which aims to "supports research, education, and publications building on Rene Girard's mimetic theory."[499]
Thiel resided inSan Francisco, California, until 2018, when he moved to Los Angeles. He had criticized San Francisco for being "intolerant of conservatives, insular and overpriced".[500] 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.[501][18]
Thiel married his long-time partner,Matt Danzeisen, inVienna, Austria, on Thiel's 50th birthday (October 2017), when he was reported to have proposed to Danzeisen.[502][439][503] Danzeisen started his career as an investment banker atBank of America Securities.[504] By 2007, when the couple were dating, Danzeisen was vice president ofBlackRock. By 2021, he was chairman of Bridgetown 1 and Bridgetown 2, sponsored by Thiel Capital andRichard Li'sPacific Century Group.Sam Altman also sat on the board.[505][506] Danzeisen also participates in other Thiel enterprises related to the family ofLi Ka-shing (father of Richard Li), such as the Malta-based EUM.[507] In 2017 Danzeisen was working as head of private investments at Thiel Capital, with a primary focus on North America and Asia.[508][509] Thiel and Danzeisen have two young daughters, aged five and three as of June 2024, born through a surrogate.[510][511]Adrian Wooldridge fromBloomberg reported in August 2025 that Thiel had four children.[512] In 2023, in an interview with theAtlantic, Thiel noted that Danzeisen had tried to dissuade him from donating money to Republicans.[439]
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 byDavid Brock and Jack Bury.[513][514]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.[515]
Religious views
Thiel is a self-describedChristian and a promoter ofRené Girard'sChristian anthropology.[516] Girard, aCatholic, explained the role of sacrifice and thescapegoat mechanism in resolving social conflict, which appealed to Thiel as it offered a basis for his Christian faith without thefundamentalism of his parents.[517] Thiel grew up in anevangelical 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."[59] 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."[518] Thiel has participated inVeritas Forum events with the theologianN. T. Wright discussing religion, politics, and technology.[519][520]
Thiel opines thatwokeism 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.[521][522][523][524] 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.[518]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."[522] Elke Schwarz, a professor of political theory, notes that Peter Thiel andMarc Andreessen are the foremost proponents of techno-eschatology, which demonstrates the sacralizing of AI and uses spiritualism to bolster the logic of venture capitalism.[525] 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."[526]
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 byDavid Wood'sActs 17 Collective in San Francisco,[527][528][529] which drew a group of protesters.[530] 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.[531][532] 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.[533][534] He has referred to individuals, organizations, communism or even anti-tech regulations as precursors of the Antichrist.[534][531][535][529] Different commentators see his Antichrist theory as a narrative to highlight the role of a hero,[528] or a framework to attack political opponents[535] 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).[529] Kayla Carman from the RussianStrategic 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.[536] German scholarAdrian 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.[537] Professor Matthew Avery Sutton, representing theWashington 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".[538]
Chess
Thiel began playingchess at the age of six[31] and was at one time one of the top junior players in the United States.[22][539][540] He holds the title ofLife Master,[541][542] but he has not competed since 2003.[26] On 30 November 2016, Thiel made the ceremonial first move in the first tiebreak game of theWorld Chess Championship 2016 betweenSergey Karjakin andMagnus Carlsen.[539][543][544] 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.[545]
Thiel was the inspiration for thePeter Gregory character on HBO'sSilicon Valley.[551] Thiel said of Gregory, "I liked him [...] I think eccentric is always better than evil".[552]
After he hired former Austrian chancellorSebastian Kurz (following scandals that led to Kurz's resignation) for Thiel Capital in 2022,Jan Böhmermann of theZDF wrote and performed the satirical songRight time to Thiel that portrayed Thiel as aJames Bond villain.[554]
New Zealand citizenship
Thiel was aGerman citizen by birth and became anAmerican citizen by naturalization.[555] He receivedNew Zealand citizenship in a private ceremony at the New Zealand consulate inSanta Monica, California, in August 2011; his citizenship status was not made public until 2017.[556][557][558] Thiel had visited the country on four occasions prior to his application for citizenship,[559] staying a total of 12 days; the typical residency requirement is 1,350 days in five years.[560] When he applied, Thiel stated he had no intention of living in New Zealand, which is a criterion for citizenship.[561] Then-Minister of Internal AffairsNathan Guy waived those normal requirements, under an "exceptional circumstances" clause of theCitizenship Act.[556][559][561]
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 the2011 Christchurch earthquake appeal fund.[559]Rod Drury, founder ofXero, also provided a formal reference for Thiel's application.[556] Thiel's case was cited by critics as an example of how New Zealand passports can be bought,[559][562] something the New Zealand government denied.[559] At the time that his citizenship was revealed,The New Zealand Herald came out with the report that theNew Zealand Defence Force, theSecurity Intelligence Service, and theGovernment Communications and Security Bureau have long-standing links with Thiel's Palantir.[560]
In 2015, Thiel purchased a 193-hectare (477-acre) estate nearWānaka, which fit the classification of "sensitive land" and required foreign buyers to obtain permission from New Zealand'sOverseas Investment Office. Thiel did not require permission, as he was a citizen.[563]
Awards and honors
In 2006, Thiel won the Herman Lay Award for Entrepreneurship.[564]
In 2007, he was honored as a Young Global leader by theWorld Economic Forum as one of the 250 most distinguished leaders age 40 and under.[565]
In 2012,Students For Liberty, an organization dedicated to spreadinglibertarian ideals on college campuses, awarded Thiel its "Alumnus of the Year" award.[567]
In 2021, theFrankfurter 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."[568]
Works
The Diversity Myth
In 1995, theIndependent Institute publishedThe Diversity Myth: Multiculturalism and the Politics of Intolerance at Stanford, which Thiel co-authored along with fellow tech entrepreneurDavid O. Sacks, and with a foreword by the lateEmory University historianElizabeth Fox-Genovese.[569] The book is critical ofpolitical correctness andmulticulturalism 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."[570][N 6]
Thiel and Sacks's writings drew criticism from then-Stanford ProvostCondoleezza Rice and then-Stanford PresidentGerhard Casper in describing Thiel and Sacks's view of Stanford as "a cartoon, not a description of our freshman curriculum",[572] and their commentary as "demagoguery, pure and simple".[573]
In 2016, Thiel apologized for two statements involving the rape crisis movement and date rape that he made in the book.[574]
Zero to One
In spring 2012, Thiel taught the class CS 183: Startup at Stanford University.[575] Notes for the course, taken by studentBlake Masters, led to a book titledZero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Thiel and Masters, which was released in September 2014.[576][577][578]
Derek Thompson, writing forThe Atlantic, statedZero 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."[579]
"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 theHoover Institution. The essay draws on several thinkers and political theorists and argues that theSeptember 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.[5]
Others
One of Thiel's favorite books isThe Sovereign Individual, which was a little-known work before he helped to popularize it.[580] He wrote the preface for the reprinted edition.[581]
^HistorianBarbara Stollberg-Rilinger: "Eine technologisch perfektionierte Welt wäre eine moralfreie und im wörtlichen Sinne verantwortungslose Welt". Translated: "A technologically perfected world would be a world devoid of morality and, in the literal sense, without responsibility."[14]
^Peter Thiel: "Everyone in the world needs money – to get paid, to trade, to live. Paper money is an ancient technology and an inconvenient means of payment. You can run out of it. It wears out. It can get lost or stolen. In the twenty-first century, people need a form of money that's more convenient and secure, something that can be accessed from anywhere with a PDA or an Internet connection. Of course, what we're calling 'convenient' for American users will be revolutionary for the developing world. Many of these countries' governments play fast and loose with their currencies. They use inflation and sometimes wholesale currency devaluations, like we saw in Russia and several Southeast Asian countries last year, to take wealth away from their citizens. Most of the ordinary people there never have an opportunity to open an offshore account or to get their hands on more than a few bills of a stable currency like U.S. dollars. Eventually PayPal will be able to change this. In the future, when we make our service available outside the U.S. and as Internet penetration continues to expand to all economic tiers of people, PayPal will give citizens worldwide more direct control over their currencies than they ever had before. It will be nearly impossible for corrupt governments to steal wealth from their people through their old means because if they try the people will switch to dollars or Pounds or Yen, in effect dumping the worthless local currency for something more secure."[49]
^Wired: "Palantir is often called a data broker, a data miner, or a giant database of personal information. In reality, it's none of these [...] Customers need to already have the data they want to work with—Palantir itself does not provide any."[67]
^Vasilis Galis, Professor in science and technology atudies at theIT University of Copenhagen: "When Palantir Technologies customized the Gotham platform into POL-INTEL, a data integration and analysis platform purchased andused by the Danish police, it also enforced a new ontology that simultaneously shaped the police organization and policing practices. [...] The basis for Palantir's E-ontology derives from such political notions and is explicitly performed by the company's own under-standing of its products: 'software as much as anything else is a product of the legal and moral order from which it stems and plays a role in defending it' (Palantir,2022a)."[70]
^Peter Thiel: "But also there cannot be a decision to avoid all decisions and to retreat into studying the Bible in anticipation of the Second Coming, for then one will have ceased to be a statesman or stateswoman."[341]
^The Diversity Myth: "If you stress "diversity", it means that diversity is not real, a fiction. There's no real multiculturalism; it's monocultural. The agenda is not non-Western; it's anti-Western. At Stanford, for instance, multicultural initiatives were funded by slashing the budgets of the university's foreign-language departments. You don't have diversity when you gather people who look different but talk and think alike."[571]
References
^ab"Honoring Mr. Peter Thiel 2018 Distinguished German-American of the Year"(PDF).gahmusa.org. German-American Heritage Foundation of the USA. 2018. p. 9. Retrieved22 September 2025.He has also always remembered his roots and kept strong ties to his home country – holding German citizenship and visiting Germany on a regular basis. Mr. Thiel is a true example of German-American friendship and cooperation.
^Jenkins, Holman W. Jr. (9 October 2010)."Technology=Salvation".The Wall Street Journal.Archived from the original on 23 April 2015. Retrieved20 May 2012.
^abGranato, Andrew (27 November 2017)."Stanford Politics".stanfordpolitics.org.Archived from the original on 7 February 2021. Retrieved26 February 2021.
^Jakobs, Hans-Jürgen (23 November 2024).""Ein herrschender Clown ist schöner als der Papst"".www.handelsblatt.com.Eine Art Philosophenkönig ist vielmehr Peter Thiel. Er handelt sehr kühl und strategisch – eine schillernde Figur, weit außerhalb unserer linksliberalen Wahrnehmungsschemata.
^Lonsdale, Joe (17 April 2024). "Tariffs, DOGE & Fixing America: Peter Thiel's Skeptic Solutions".Joe Lonsdale: American Optimist. Self-published. 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."
^Coulter, Ann (2015).¡Adios, America! : The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hell Hole. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing. p. 280.ISBN978-1-62157-606-8.OCLC949987257.Others who have helped with this book, mostly by reading chapters and voting on titles, but in other ways, as well, are: Bill Armistead, Jon Caldara, Peter Brimelow, Rodney Conover, Mallory and Thomas Danaher, David Friedman, James Fulford, Ron Gordon, Kevin Harrington, David Limbaugh, Jay Mann, Jim Moody, Dan Travers, Jon Tukel, Marshall Sella, Peter Thiel, Kelly Victory, and Younis Zubchevich.
^Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (8 December 2014)."e@nu Speaker Series with Peter Thiel: Developing The Developed World".e@nu speaker series. Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation: Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering. Event occurs at 30:00.
^"About Us".Breakout Labs. Archived fromthe original on 14 November 2013. Retrieved5 December 2013.
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