things have gotten worse since we last talked

When I asked him who he’d back in 2024, he refused to answer the question. But in our conversation today, Thiel says he’s changing course. Indeed, beyond supporting Trump’s presidency, in last year’s midterms, Thiel was a huge backer of two anti-establishment Republican candidates: Blake Masters in Arizona, who lost, and J.D. But Thiel has always been comfortable being a contrarian. The decision to support Trump, and in such a public way, was seen by even some of his fans as a bridge too far. It’s time to end the era of stupid wars and rebuild our country. On this most important issue, Donald Trump is right. Instead of going to Mars, we have invaded the Middle East. Our nuclear bases still use floppy disks.

The future felt limitless, but today our government is broken. The Apollo program was just about to put a man on the moon. Defense research was laying the foundations for the internet. It’s hard to remember this, but our government was once high-tech too. In 2016 that meant breaking ranks with almost the entire Silicon Valley set by throwing his weight behind Donald Trump, who he believed could shake up a stagnant Washington and therefore a stagnant America.įrom Peter Thiel’s speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention: But unlike a lot of wealthy, powerful people who often say the popular thing in public and the thing they actually believe in private, Thiel has used his voice and his fortune to steer the culture and the country in the direction he believes in, despite sometimes unbelievable blowback. He was also the first outside investor to Facebook, and his investments in companies like LinkedIn, Palantir, and SpaceX have made him a billionaire many times over. Thiel was one of the founders of the online payment system PayPal, and his cohort of co-founders, known as the PayPal Mafia, included people like Elon Musk, David Sacks, and Max Levchin. So depending on your view of the world, or your politics, or perhaps what coast you live on, you might think Peter Thiel is a hero or a villain, or maybe you haven’t yet heard of him at all. He’s also one of the most despised people among the New York media set, having successfully conspired to put the publication Gawker out of business. Peter Thiel is one of the most formative men in modern Silicon Valley. A few weeks ago my producer, Candace, and I went to Miami to talk to the tech entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel at his home.

Things have gotten worse since we last talked