“I liked him [...] I think eccentric is always better than evil”
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Peter Thiel
Peter Andreas Thiel is a German-American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and conservative political activist. A co-founder of PayPal (1998), Palantir Technologies (2003), and Founders Fund (2005), he was also the first outside investor in Facebook (2004). As of August 2026, Forbes estimated Thiel's net worth at US$32 billion.
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business · American entrepreneur and venture capitalist (born 1967) · financier · computer scientist · banker · entrepreneur · chess player · writer · manager · investor · technology entrepreneur · also Peter Thiel, Peter Andreas Thiel, Peter A. Thiel, Thiel
Born 11 October 1967 · Q705525
71 published statements · 0 followers
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2026· 9 entries
“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.”
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Invezz: Peter Thiel makes Amazon his top stock: what he bought next is more revealing
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Awarded Axel Springer Award (2026).
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Public attention spiked: 67,578 Wikipedia readers in one day, 6× the usual 11,233, with 3 article edits. Editors noted: Personal life Added information.
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Both HPSP and Hanmi were reported to prepare to work with Elon Musk on the Terafab project
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The fund co-led investments in Amsterdam-based defense startup Onodrim (launched by Palantir alumni) and AI startup Arda (led by former OpenAI executive Bob McGrew), both of which bear Tolkien-themed names
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Thiel invested in Objection
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Crescendo became a major shareholder of Sungho Electronics after selling to them INTIMAX, a firm which provides semiconductor handlers to the "Big Three" memory manufacturers (SK Hynix, Samsung Electronics and Micron)
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2025· 5 entries
Snopes rated the claim “In a 2014 email to former White House counsel Kathy Ruemmler, Jeffrey Epstein offered girls’ for sexual services to billionaire Peter Thiel, former U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Emirati and Qatari officials, and others.” False.
Shown as reported and rated by a fact checker, not as an established fact.
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Reported net worth: $23.9B (as of 2025).
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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) wa
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“Reagan was consumer capitalism, which is oxymoronic. You don”
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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), EnduroSat (Bulgarian startup that produces Gen3 satellites at scale), Varda (sp
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2024· 7 entries
Alongside General Catalyst and Red Cell Partners, the Founders Fund incubated the defense incubator Valinor Enterprises
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Thiel and Danzeisen have two young daughters, aged five and three as of June 2024, born through a surrogate.
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Thiel became the lead funder of the Enhanced Games, a multi-sport event that will allow athletes to use performance-enhancing substances without being subject to drug tests
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Succeeded in manufacturing a tunnel boring machine (TBM) using its own technology
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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 Palan
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It also invested in Impulse Space (in-space transportation services), Ramp, Crusoe (AI infrastructure using clean energy)
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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 h
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2023· 2 entries
In 2023, in an interview with the Atlantic, Thiel noted that Danzeisen had tried to dissuade him from donating money to Republicans.
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By Jason Camm (Chief Medical Officer of Thiel Capital)
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2022· 4 entries
By Omeed Malik and Chris Buskirk, a confidant of Thiel's
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Raised US$350 million in total, including US$250 million from Thiel
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Through Elevat3 and in partnership with the Founders Fund, the Apeiron Group bought shares from the Chinese Fosun International and others to become a shareholder in the Hamburg-based NAGA Group
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Backed B2B-focused Wischoff Ventures founded by solo GP Nichole Wischoff
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2021· 3 entries
Awarded Frank Schirrmacher Award (2021).
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Thiel backed the first fund of A-Star Partners, founded by Kevin Hartz, former partner at Founders Fund
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Accompanied by a group of international strategic advisors
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2020· 2 entries
Thiel invested into the Neunkirchen-based startup Neodigital through the fund
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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
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2019· 1 entry
Thiel, together with Mark Cuban and Marc Andreessen, backed the San Francisco-based crypto investment fund 1Confirmation
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2018· 1 entry
The Founders Fund invested in the Israeli company Carbyne (emergency service)
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2017· 3 entries
“not quite feasible from an engineering perspective”
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By Palmer Luckey (who is Thiel's mentee), Joe Chen, Trae Stephens, Matt Grimm and Brian Schimpf (the latter three are Palantir and Founders Fund alumni)
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Thiel was one of the first outside investors in Clearview AI, a facial recognition technology startup that has raised concerns in the tech world and media for its risks of weaponization
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2016· 2 entries
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)
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Sold a little under 1 million of his shares for around $100 million
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2015· 2 entries
By Danielle Strachman and Michael Gibson, who were both in the founding team of the Thiel Fellowship
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Thereby becoming the first institutional investor in the cannabis industry
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2014· 3 entries
Jeffrey Epstein leveraged his relationship with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to get access to Thiel
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But the low-cost carrier shut down in 2020 due to the Covid pandemic
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“Conversations with Bill Kristol”
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2012· 1 entry
With the sponsorship of Peter Thiel"
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2011· 4 entries
Which became controversial when made public in 2017
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Backed the second fund of Joshua Kushner's Thrive Capital
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“to fill the funding gap that exists for innovative research outside the confines of an academic institution, large corporation, or government.”
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And based in Los Angeles, also referred to as Thiel's family office
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2010· 1 entry
Founded Thiel Capital in 2011, co-founded Mithril Capital in 2012, was investment committee chair in 2012, and was a part-time partner at Y Combinator from 2015 to 2017
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2007· 4 entries
And headed by his Palantir co-founder Nathan Gettings
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“Peter Thiel is totally gay, people.”
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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
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“[The media] never takes [Trump] seriously, but it always takes him literally. I think a lot of the voters who vote for Trump take Trump seriously, but not literally.”
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2005· 3 entries
Thiel created Founders Fund, a San Francisco-based venture capital fund
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Career landmark: board of directors member (2005–2022).
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Launched Founders Fund with PayPal partners Ken Howery and Luke Nosek
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2004· 2 entries
There were three investors other than Thiel and Karp but little interest from venture capital firms, so Thiel and his venture fund largely bankrolled the initial $30 million cost
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Thiel spoke of the dot-com bubble having migrated, in effect, into a growing bubble in the financial sector, and specified General Electric and Walmart as vulnerable
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2003· 4 entries
Thiel successfully bet that the United States dollar would weaken
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Career landmark: board of directors member (2003).
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“the big, macroeconomic idea that we had at Clarium—the idée fixe—was the peak-oil theory, which was basically that the world was running out of oil, and that there were no easy alternatives.”
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A big data analysis company, and has been its chairman since its inception
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2000· 1 entry
With Elon Musk's online financial services company X
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1999· 1 entry
Representatives from Nokia and Deutsche Bank sent $3 million in venture funding to Thiel using PayPal on their PalmPilots
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1996· 1 entry
And co-founded PayPal with Max Levchin and Luke Nosek in 1998
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1993· 1 entry
While also working as a speechwriter for former United States secretary of education William Bennett
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1977· 1 entry
The Thiel family lived in South Africa and South West Africa (modern-day Namibia) in the time of apartheid
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1971· 1 entry
His family moved to South African-occupied Namibia, before moving back to the US in 1977
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1967· 2 entries
Born 1967-10-11.
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“s 2016 presidential campaign. Thiel stated to The New York Times:”
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