At an October dinner at Stanford University for the Federalist Society, he spoke of the “crazy society” that had created “a completely deranged government,” according to a recording of the event obtained by The New York Times. The United States was on the cusp of a major correction, he said.
“My slightly apocalyptic, somewhat hopeful thought is that we are finally at a point where things are breaking down,” Thiel said.
Thiel, 54, has not said publicly what he thinks about the 2020 election, but Mr Trump sees a vessel to push through his ideological goals, said three people close to the investor. The two men recently met in New York and at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. Mr. Thiel also funded an app company run by John McEntee, one of Mr Trump’s closest associates, two people with knowledge of the deal said.
Unlike traditional Republican donors who focused on winning their party’s control of Congress and the White House, Thiel has set his sights on reshaping the Republican agenda with his kind of anti-establishment contrarianism, said Stephen K. Bannon, the former president of Trump. chief strategist.
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“I don’t think it’s just about turning the Senate around,” said Bannon, who has known Mr Thiel since 2016. “I think Peter wants to change the direction of the country.”
The gift of Mr. Thiel is expected to be only a small part of the hundreds of millions of dollars likely to flow through campaigns this cycle. But the amounts he pours into individual races and the early nature of his primary donations have put him on the radar of Republican hopefuls.
In the past, many have courted the billionaire Koch brothers or Sheldon Adelson, the casino mogul, who died in 2021. This year, they’ve pushed for invitations to Mr. Thiel’s homes in Los Angeles and Miami Beach, or debated how to at least get along. the phone with him, political strategists said.
