It Kind of Seems Like Peter Thiel Is Losing It

Summary

PayPal and Palantir cofounder Peter Thiel has long held outrageous ideological views — and imposed them on the world using his billions of dollars in wealth to do things like build ICE’s massive surveillance panopticon, support the rise of the “New Right,” and destroying Gawker Media by secretly funding Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against it. His beliefs during that period — an explosive mixture of race science, libertarianism, and rugged capitalism — might strike many people as noxious, but at least they followed the internal logic of an extremely powerful tech billionaire. Now, though, leaked information is making it sound as though he’s actually losing his grip. For years, rumors have swirled that Thiel has developed some kind of obsession with the “Antichrist,” an entity referenced in the Bible’s Book of John and Thessalonians who will supposedly arise during the end times and claim to be God, before ultimately being defeated by Jesus. If you’re wondering whether Thiel is looking at the legend of the Antichrist as some kind of high-minded metaphor for his political convictions, The Guardian obtained audio this month of Thiel talking about the topic during a recent private appearance — and unfortunately, it’s immediately clear that he believes that this mythical figure from the pages of an ancient holy book is a literal entity who will walk the Earth during some kind of hellish apocalypse. “Some people think of [the Antichrist] as a type of very bad person,” Thiel clarified during his remarks. “Sometimes it’s used more generally as a spiritual descriptor of the forces of evil. What I will focus on is the most common and most dramatic interpretation of Antichrist: an evil king or tyrant or anti-messiah who appears in the end times.” In fact, Thiel said during the leaked lecture that he’s suspicious the Antichrist is already among us. He even mentioned some possible suspects: it could be someone like climate activist Greta Thunberg, he suggested, or AI critic Eliezer Yudk...