Years ago, when I first began researching Peter Thiel, I never could have thought that this philosophy enthusiast-turned-entrepreneur would one day have such an impact on the direction of America.
Born in Frankfurt in 1967, Thiel moved to the US as a small child. At Stanford University, he studied philosophy and law; he then co-founded PayPal with Elon Musk in 1999. After PayPal sold to eBay in 2002, Thiel switched his attention to startup investing, most famously making early investments in Facebook.
Politically, Thiel was a vocal financial supporter of Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign. But by 2023 he turned his allegiance to Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor and primary Republican opponent of Trump. According to Thiel, the Republican Party should concentrate on economic competition and innovation with China instead of cultural conflicts. This calculated change represented Thiel’s continuous impact on Republican politics and his conviction in the primacy of technological advancement above ideological conflicts.
Notwithstanding this, Trump chose J.D. Vance, an Ohio senator and one of Thiel’s protégés, as his vice president to mark victory in the 2024 election. Previously winning his Senate seat with Thiel’s backing, Vance is now vice president and evidence of Thiel’s ongoing political impact inside the Republican Party.
Still among the most mysterious and powerful personalities in Silicon Valley is Thiel. Known for co-creating PayPal, an early supporter of Facebook, and starting Palantir, a data analytics firm closely connected to U.S. intelligence services, he is a millionaire investor. But Thiel is a thinker greatly inspired by philosophers René Girard and Leo Strauss, not just a tech whirl-around. Deeply libertarian and conservative, his perspective is based on the belief that technical advancement must be pursued relentlessly, even at the risk of social and political upheaval.
Unlike most Silicon Valley elites—who mostly opposed Trump—Thiel publicly supported him. He gave $1.25 million to Trump’s campaign in 2016 and attended the Republican National Convention, where he made news as a gay entrepreneur supporting a politician frequently attacked for his position on LGBTQ+ rights. Working to situate tech-friendly leaders in key government posts, Thiel was instrumental in the presidential transition team following Trump’s victory.
His impact extended into Trump’s relationships with Silicon Valley titans. He helped Trump, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, and Elon Musk schedule meetings to shape conversations on technology policy and government engagement with private companies. Mostly in intelligence, military, and national security operations, his company, Palantir, landed significant government contracts.
But Thiel finally turned away from Trump’s government, allegedly disillusioned by several of its policies, especially its harsh immigration policies. Though he stayed involved in Republican politics, funding far-right candidates in the 2022 midterms, by the 2020 election he declined to support Trump.
From his perspective with Trump, strategic pragmatism has always been present. Backing Trump was a way for Thiel to lower government tech industry regulations and gain clout in Washington. For Trump, Thiel’s backing presented a rare chance to bridge the divide between his populist movement and Silicon Valley’s wealthy elite. But over time, their relationship weakened, and although Thiel plotted his own road, he continued to sculpt the ideological terrain of the Republican Party, especially among libertarians and tech-driven conservatives.
Though accessing a definitive version of it remains elusive, one of the most important intellectual contributions credited to Thiel is his essay, “The Straussian Moment.” Mostly missing a widely available published edition, the article functions as an unofficial PDF in Evernote.
The essay became the focus of a discussion with Peter Robinson at the Hoover Institution in 2019, and more lately, a thorough review of the book The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley’s Pursuit of Power on Amazon highlighted it as a central theme. Some commentators contend that Thiel’s criticism of globalization and his fresh embrace of nationalism might be a planned attempt to avoid an eventual ideological reckoning—perhaps even an apocalyptic moment of truth.
Mostly, The Straussian Moment is a product of its time. It was written about the same time as Thiel’s attendance at the “Politics and Apocalypse” conference and corresponded with the founding of Palantir, a business firmly entwined with post-9/11 intelligence operations. To say the least, it is unexpected that Thiel—a tech investor rather than a political theorist—would produce such a thorough criticism of modernity and its existential crises. Still, it captures his twin identity—that of a businessman obsessed with the junction of philosophy, technology, and power.
One wonders: Does Peter Thiel truly believe in his grand theories about civilization and its decline, or does he merely use them to justify his actions? Is this worldview the guiding force behind his decisions, or is it simply a philosophical reflection of his ambitions?
Though Thiel appears to dismiss Hollywood’s apocalyptic futurism, his vision of the future strikingly mirrors those same scenarios. Despite frequently complaining that science fiction movies spread an irrational fear of technology, his investments tell a different story. The future he envisions is not a free and democratic utopia but rather a militarized, secretive, and highly controlled world—one that bears a striking resemblance to the cold, authoritarian aesthetic of Blade Runner.
For Thiel, liberal democracy is not just ineffective; it is a direct obstacle to progress. In response to this apparent chaos, he sees only one solution: the unchecked dominance of technological innovation. According to his theory, the future is shaped not by social and political developments but entirely by technology.
Though it may sound like science fiction, his vision blends technological utopianism with messianic redemption—an idea that feels unsettlingly real.
In 2015, during a conference hosted by the New Beginnings Institute, Thiel remarked: “Christianity is the prism through which I see the entire world.” This statement reflects his view of religion as a comprehensive interpretative framework rather than merely a personal belief. Earlier this year, Thiel spoke with Christian investor and blogger Jerry Bowyer about René Girard, Nietzsche, Plato, the Second Coming of Christ, and the possibility of humanity accelerating the apocalypse. The question arose: Could modeling oneself after Christ provide a path to unwavering hope for the planet’s future in an era of political turmoil and cultural chaos?
Thiel aligns himself with intellectuals and influencers who take unconventional approaches to modern discourse, including Rod Dreher, Tyler Cowen, Jordan Peterson, and Scott Alexander. Each of these figures has cultivated a unique intellectual identity by blending philosophy, religion, and politics in ways that defy conventional academic boundaries.
In this landscape, the line between a media influencer and a true intellectual often becomes blurred. The rejection of traditional academic constraints allows for intellectual freedom but also risks misleading audiences into mistaking rhetorical complexity for deep, systematic thought.
Though Thiel’s influence remained strong through J.D. Vance and his ideological ally Curtis Yarvin, the same Thiel who openly supported Trump in 2016 ultimately distanced himself from him.
Ironically, Vance was once a vocal Trump critic. In a 2016 New York Times op-ed titled “Mr. Trump Is Unfit for Our Nation’s Highest Office” he openly opposed Trump’s candidacy. In a private message to his law school roommate, Vance even warned that Trump could become “America’s Hitler.”
Eight years later, Vance has undergone a complete transformation. He now positions himself as an economic populist, aligning with Senator Elizabeth Warren’s push to restrict the privileges of failing bankers. But even more striking is his radical shift toward Trumpism. Now one of Trump’s most fervent supporters in the Senate, Vance defends the former president with unwavering loyalty—even surpassing Trump himself in his zeal for anti-democratic rhetoric.
It is evident that Vance has fully immersed himself in the rising “National Conservative” faction of the Republican Party, which blends economic populism with an authoritarian commitment to crushing liberals in the culture wars.
Inspired by Curtis Yarvin, a Silicon Valley-based monarchist blogger and software engineer, Vance has discussed dismantling bureaucracy and defying the Supreme Court. His Senate campaign was heavily funded by his former employer, Peter Thiel, the billionaire who once wrote, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”
Additionally, Vance has embraced the ideas of Patrick Deneen, a Notre Dame professor who recently published a book arguing for “regime change” in the United States. At a book launch event in Washington, Vance described himself as part of the “post-liberal right” stating that he views his role in Congress as explicitly anti-regime.
Vance is also a vocal admirer of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a far-right leader who has systematically dismantled democracy in his country. Vance has praised Orbán’s approach to higher education, stating that the Hungarian leader “made intelligent decisions that we could learn from in the United States.” These policies involve using state funding to impose government control over universities, effectively turning them into ideological instruments of the ruling party.
Former Trump strategist Steve Bannon once declared that Vance is “at the nerve center of the post-liberal movement.” Meanwhile, Kevin Roberts, president of the right-wing Heritage Foundation and architect of the “Project 2025” political manifesto, has stated that Vance is, if not the movement’s primary leader, certainly one of its key figures shaping the future. All of this operates within the philosophical framework of Peter Thiel’s Straussian ideology.
Despite being one of Trump’s most prominent supporters in 2016, Thiel withdrew his support in the 2020 election. Unlike today, he did not publicly disclose his reasons at the time.
Recently, during a gathering of entrepreneurs and intellectuals in Aspen, Thiel remarked that he would only vote for Trump “if a gun were held to his head.” He made this statement while still believing Trump would defeat Biden.
Nonetheless, Thiel has not entirely ruled out changing his stance. Last year, in an interview with The Atlantic, he admitted, “There’s always a possibility that I might change my mind.”
This remains the hope of J.D. Vance, now Vice President of the United States. In an interview with Financial Times, Vance stated: “I will keep talking to Peter and try to convince him. Even if he’s exhausted by politics now, he’ll be even more exhausted if we lose and Kamala Harris becomes president.”
However, in the same interview, Vance took a stance that could further alienate Thiel. He called for the breakup of Google, arguing that the tech giant, like many others in Silicon Valley, has amassed excessive power.
At the Republican National Convention in July, Vance declared, “We are done with Wall Street!” This raises a critical question: Can this brand of rhetoric persuade a staunch libertarian like Thiel? So far, Thiel has remained silent on Vance’s remarks. Perhaps, what is perceived as Thiel’s aura of mystery is nothing more than a carefully crafted enigma. Conservative philosopher Leo Strauss argued that certain thinkers and writers intentionally obscure their ideas, ensuring that only the most discerning readers can grasp the truths hidden beneath the surface.
Thiel appears to have adopted a similar strategy. His interviews are often laced with ambiguity and intrigue, sometimes bordering on prophetic musings about the future. His ability to shift meanings, provide multi-layered responses, and deftly maneuver conversations creates an effect in which his audience feels on the verge of uncovering a profound revelation—only to find themselves suspended in uncertainty. Peter Thiel interweaves theological and philosophical themes deeply into his thoughts on globalization, politics, and business, making him seem less like a technology investor and more like a technological prophet. He does not present truth directly but instead conceals it beneath layers of metaphors and allusions, as though his words are buried in a dark recess, veiled beneath multiple layers of meaning, just beyond reach. Elsewhere, Thiel has stated: “Only by seeing the world anew, as fresh and strange as it was to the ancients who first perceived it, can we both recreate it and preserve it for the future.”
This raises a fundamental question, however: How can we perceive the world as fresh and unfamiliar when millennia of ideas, history, and customs have increasingly distanced us from humanity’s original encounter with reality? How can we perceive the world directly when historical ideas and interpretations have already shaped our understanding of it?
Leo Strauss, the conservative philosopher, offered an answer to this conundrum. He argued that “the world as it is immediately present before us and as we experience it” constitutes the “natural view”—a perspective that Plato and Aristotle analyzed. Therefore, if we seek an authentic understanding of nature and existence, we must return to these classical thinkers. However, this return is only possible by freeing ourselves from intellectual traditions, fixed narratives, and historical interpretations that have shaped our thinking. Strauss believed that classical texts should be reread—not through the assumptions that history has imposed upon them, but with an effort to grasp their original intent. His goal was neither to replicate nor preserve the past but rather to understand the fundamental aims of ancient thinkers and engage in critical dialogue with them.
Still, Thiel’s assertion that “Unlike Strauss, a Christian statesman or stateswoman knows that the modern era will not last and will ultimately give way to something entirely different” clearly misrepresents—or perhaps deliberately distorts—Strauss’s viewpoint. Strauss never claimed that modernity was permanent; rather, his entire intellectual endeavor was dedicated to reviving the classical alternative as a serious counterpoint to modernity. One thing is clear, however: America is moving toward a Straussian moment, even if Thiel misrepresents Strauss and distances himself from Trump using J.D. Vance as his Trojan horse. As Strauss suggested, “Progress is often found in returning to the past.”
But how far will this regression go? Will it lead to a time when new Neros and masters rule society once again? Are we not far from seeing Curtis Yarvin take center stage on the global political scene? Have we realized this transformation too late, or are we only now beginning to notice it?