Who even is Peter Thiel, anyway?
- Frank Egan
- Apr 23, 2025
- 6 min read
Meet the tech-billionaire with a history of opposing diversity and democracy who donated tens of millions of dollars to Donald Trump and J.D. Vance over the last decade.
You may or may not have heard of the so-called “Leader of the PayPal Mafia”, Peter Thiel, mentioned in relation to President Donald Trump or, more likely, in relation to Elon Musk. In short, Peter Thiel is a businessman/entrepreneur that operates largely in the world of technology, both civilian and military. He is co-founder of such companies as PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and was a major early investor to Facebook. More notably, however, Thiel is an outspoken political activist, a self-described conservative libertarian, and one of the first Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to publicly endorse Donald Trump.
With Elon Musk becoming much more involved in Trump’s presidency, it is very likely that Thiel is going to take on a much more public role in politics. In preparation for this, it is important for people to know the facts about the man who may be influencing elected officials directly in the near future.
Raised Among Apartheid
Thiel was born in Frankfurt am Main, West Germany, in 1967, to Klaus Friedrich Thiel and his wife Susanne Thiel. Due to Klaus’s job managing mining companies, the family moved around during Peter Thiel’s childhood and finally settled in Foster City, California in 1977.
At some point before moving to California, the Thiels lived in South Africa and at one point, Swakopmund, a small German town on the coast of then South-West Africa (today’s Namibia). Though it’s not clear exactly what years between 1967 and 1977 Thiel spent in Swakopmund, it is important to consider the historical context surrounding the area at the time.
Between the years of 1904 and 1908, the Herero and Namaqua massacres claimed the lives of 75,000 people, and the Colonial German Army detained survivors in concentration camps (one of which was in the city of Swakopmund) where they were subject to slavery and medical experimentation.
After the end of World War II, control of the then-Nazi-occupied area was handed to South Africa by the League of Nations. During this time, the area was paced under Apartheid. The racial segregation between white and black people did not end until 1989.
In 1976, Henry Kamm, a reporter with the New York Times, published an article about Swakopmund headlined “South-Africa City Remains ‘More German Than Germany’". The article begins with an anecdote about the reporter being greeted by a black gas station attendant with ‘Heil Hitler!’ and a Nazi salute.
Kamm explains that Nazi movements were not uncommon in South-West Africa before German internment took place in the area in 1939; and that Nazis who fled to South-West Africa strengthened and maintained those movements.
Openly Opposed to Diversity
In 1995, Thiel published The Diversity Myth, a book exploring the “debilitating impact that politically correct "multiculturalism" has had upon higher education and academic freedom in the United States” with the help of David O. Sacks, a South African entrepreneur.
The book claims that academic institutions ‘silence dissent’ and ‘stifle intellectual life’, ‘dumb-down’ admissions standards and curricula, and conduct ‘campus witch hunts’ all in the name of Diversity.
The “Education” of a Libertarian
Peter Thiel describes his beliefs as “libertarian”, which is generally defined as a political philosophy that advocates for minimal state intervention in the free market and the private affairs of citizens and corporations.
In 2009, Thiel published “The Education of a Libertarian”, an essay detailing his political beliefs and predictions for the future of freedom.
Most notably, Thiel speaks of his time after college and the challenges that libertarians faced in the political sphere of the era. He claims that the idea of a “capitalist democracy” is no longer possible due to two main factors:
An increase in welfare beneficiaries since the 1920s
Women gaining the right to vote
Thiel laments that these are constituencies that are “notoriously tough for libertarians”, and that libertarians need to “find an escape from politics in all its forms — from the totalitarian and fundamentalist catastrophes to the unthinking demos that guides so-called ‘social democracy’.”
Rather than engaging in an introspective autopsy of how exactly libertarianism fell out of favor, Thiel comes to the conclusion that libertarianism simply cannot coexist with ‘politics’, including the politics of a social democracy.
Escape from ‘Politics’
Within The Education of a Libertarian, Thiel gives three possible avenues for libertarians in the future to escape the dregs of democratic society and explains exactly what technologies need to be developed to make them possible (in his estimation); Cyberspace, Seasteading, and Outer Space.
Cyberspace
Thiel explains how the founding vision of PayPal was to create a New World Currency that would be free from government control or dilution. He also explains that social media companies like Facebook prove that communities can be formed without the bounds of historical nation-states. Ultimately, he decides that Cyberspace is not the best way to go, as anything created on the internet is virtual and will remain closer to imaginary than real.
Seasteading
Thiel’s ideas on Seasteading are few. He comments on the fact that people simply will not want to live at sea and the fact that technological advancements in the world of seafaring are simpler than those in the world of space travel; Though he says he eagerly supports the initiative.
Outer Space
Thiel says that outer space represents a frontier with “limitless possibility for escape from world politics”, but that it has a major barrier to entry: Rocket Technology. Thiel comments on the fact that at the time, there had only been small advancements in the field of rocket technology since the 1960s. Thiel says that libertarians must “redouble the efforts to commercialize space”.
Earlier that decade, Thiel’s business partner Elon Musk started the private space company SpaceX.
In the years since publishing “The Education of a Libertarian”, Thiel has elaborated further on the essay, emphasizing the reaction to his claims about women voting against libertarianism. He says that the idea that women will have their right to vote revoked is “absurd” and that it wouldn’t solve the problems that vex us. He does little to explain exactly what his reason for bringing it up in the first place was, but he says that he has “little hope that voting will make things better”.
Involvement with Donald Trump and J.D. Vance
In 2016, Peter Thiel became one of the first tech entrepreneurs to publicly endorse the campaign of Donald Trump. The New York Times reported that Thiel planned to give $1.25 Million to the Trump campaign through a series of super PAC donations and funds given directly to the campaign.
Thiel’s announcement came less than a week after the release of the infamous Access Hollywood tapes that featured the voice of presidential candidate Donald Trump bragging about grabbing women’s genitals.
In April of 2020, J.D. Vance wrote a blogpost titled “How I Joined The Resistance”, in which he explains that he attended one of Thiel’s talks at Yale Law School.
Vance described Thiel’s talk as “the most significant moment of my time at Yale Law School”.
He also speaks about Thiel’s religious beliefs, saying that Thiel went against Vance’s previously held belief that “dumb people were Christians and smart ones atheists”, which is what led Vance to reconsider his faith.
After Yale, Vance was hired by Thiel to work at his tech fund, Mithril Capital, while writing “Hillbilly Elegy”, according to CBS News.
In July of 2024, CBS News suggested that J.D. Vance was able to rise to electoral politics thanks in large part to donations from Peter Thiel and other entrepreneurs in the tech sector. Thiel hired Vance in 2017, then donated $15 Million to his 2022 Ohio Senate campaign, and helped him win a GOP primary with at least $10 Million in donations.
Comments