He may not hog the limelight in the same way as Donald Trump, Elon Musk, or many of his other friends and associates, but Peter Thiel has a fair claim to be one of the world's most influential figures — as well as one of its richest. Born in 1967 in Frankfurt am Main in what was then West Germany, the Thiel family moved to the US when Peter was just a year old. The family also spent six years in South-African occupied Namibia from 1971 to 1977.
Thiel's later rise to prominence came on the back of his tech firms and investments. His first major success was Paypal, a digital payments provider with which Musk was initially involved. Thiel then became the first outside investor in Facebook.
Today he also owns part of Musk's SpaceX, as well as OpenAI, and multiple other companies. Forbes puts his personal wealth at $35.7 billion (€31.1 billion). But perhaps his most noteworthy company is Palantir.
The surveillance, AI, and data-analytics company has won government contracts worth billions to create software for the Pentagon as well as US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The company released a 22-point manifesto in April that critics said bore the imprint of "techno-fascism." But Thiel could be considered as influential in politics as he is in business, and not just in the US. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Though several European countries, including the UK, the Netherlands, France, Germany, and Spain are starting to reevaluate or end their governmental and military links with Palantir due to security concerns, the company is deeply embedded in security systems across the globe.
Thiel himself has recently moved to Argentina, where he has reportedly held talks with the country's right-wing president, Javier Milei, as the government proposes a series of regulations that include incentives for foreign companies and targets investments in AI data centers. Thiel was an early backer, and later advisor, of Donald Trump, donating $1.25 million to Trump's 2016 election campaign and speaking at the Republican National Convention in the same year, at a time when Silicon Valley was broadly considered to be Democrat-leaning. Bar a hiatus between 2023 and 2025, he has been a generous donor to Republican campaigns and figures, including Vice President JD Vance.
Thiel's own political beliefs are not easy to pin down. He's been described as a libertarian nationalist and consistently expressed the belief that "technology is the alternative to politics." He also shows a distrust of authorities, regulation, and liberal elites. This is partly born of a frustration with what Thiel considers inefficient decision-making by elected officials and voters.
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