What does Peter Thiel Want? He's building the right-wing future, piece by piece - Salon article

[BootinUp]

Billionaire Peter Thiel is something of a spectral presence in American politics, media and culture: He is seemingly everywhere, but rarely seen. Recently, Thiel reportedly led the second-largest bank run in U.S. history, leading to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and one other financial institution, and necessitating the bailout of several others. He has backed or bankrolled a number of far-right Republican candidates, including newly-elected Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio and losing Senate candidate Blake Masters in Arizona. He supported Donald Trump conspicuously in 2016, and then much more quietly, and perhaps hesitantly, in 2020.

Thiel became exceedingly rich as a venture capitalist and then widely known for his sometimes bizarre notions. He started the notorious data-mining firm Palantir, its name drawn from an all-seeing magical-tech gizmo in "Lord of the Rings." He made a fortune on PayPal and Facebook, sued the satirical muckraking publication Gawker into its grave and has spent the last several years funding or building a nearly invisible media empire.

Thiel's rise has been charted in any number of profiles: In the New York Times (more than once), the Washington Post, Vanity Fair, the New Yorker (another repeat offender), NPR, the Atlantic, Mother Jones, the Financial Times, The Guardian, the BBC and dozens more. He's appeared for commentary on CNBC, published op-eds in the Wall Street Journal, and been the model for a handful of satirical send-ups.

If you're interested in some of the stranger tangents, consider these: Thiel spent $7 million on unsupervised medical research in 2017, flying 20 Americans to an offshore for widely condemned herpes vaccine experiments. He once invested $10 million on a cyber-warfare startup that hacked WhatsApp, but just $100,000 on woolly mammoth resurrection research.

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https://www.salon.com/2023/03/27/what-does-peter-thiel-want-hes-building-the-right-wing-future-piece-by-piece/