Republican Billionaire Peter Thiel: Who is he?

By Elijah Brown & Ruby Jones, Writers | October 22, 2025

Peter Thiel speaking at a podium photo courtesy of Associated Press

Peter Thiel, the founder of Paypal and investor in many companies, is the kind of billionaire to use his wealth for politics.

Peter Theil is widely known for Palantir, a tech company that he co-founded with four other businessmen. Palantir has become a symbol of "dystopian surveillance," as stated by Wired, after people have heard about the company's collaboration with immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the US Department of Defense (DoD), and the Israeli Military.

What the company actually does remains unclear, with former employees struggling to explain it. What can be said is that Palantir sends a select few of their employees to work inside client organizations to work as consultants. These employees help customize data pipelines, troubleshoot problems, and fix bugs.

Another connection the billionaire has is to current vice president, JD Vance. To start off, Vance was anti-Trump during the first election in 2016. Notably, he had compared the president to Hitler.

Thiel and Vance met in 2011 following a talk that Thiel gave at the Yale Law School, according to Forbes. Thiel's talk inspired a career pivot for Vance and Theil eventually became a mentor for Vance.

Most importantly, however, was when the two had met up at Mar-a-Logo in 2021. After talking with Theil, Vance started to become more sympathetic toward Trump. On top of that, Thiel had donated over $15 million to Vance's 2022 senate run. This was the largest amount of money ever donated to a single Senate candidate.

Theil's support for Republican candidates is seen through in his endeavors, however some have found his support contradictory since Thiel identifies himself as a gay man. In a climate such as today's, where Republicans are voicing their support for overturning of Oberfell v. Hodges (same-sex marriage equality) its easy to see why people could think Theil's stances are contradictory to his own personal life. It causes a whirl of confusion among some.

After giving a bit of background, we decided to ask Carson High School (CHS) students what they thought about Peter Thiel.

CHS Senior Chisom Nwobodo said, "I think Peter Thiel is one of a concerning amount of billionaires getting ambitious with pulling some strings without our government. Despite his jarring, attention-grabbing plot to transform the current political landscape as we know it, he manages to-for the most part-fly under the radar."

Sophia Villa, another CHS Senior had this to say, :I think that he is morally skewed and he may be confused about his own life and his own beliefs. And what he thinks is 'right'."

Peter Theil, a billionaire gone political , is leaving many people concerned for his morality and our government.