Peter Thiel's Rise to Power in Silicon Valley and Politics: The Shift of Power Through Technology

On September 4, 2024, many Silicon Valley luminaries gathered at the White House Technology Conference. However, the most influential figure was absent. Peter Thiel.

Nevertheless, everyone at the table could not escape his influence. The CEO of Figma is a scholarship student nurtured by Peter Thiel. Scale AI is a masterpiece of Thiel’s investment fund, Founders Fund. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is the biggest success story from Thiel’s early investments. Palantir is a key partner of the Trump administration. His name also appears among early investors in OpenAI.

So, who exactly is Peter Thiel?

Why does Peter Thiel aim to rebuild the Western order: An intellectual encounter with philosophers

Thiel’s ideological foundation is simple yet thorough. He is deeply rooted in libertarianism, neoconservatism, and ancient Greek philosophical thought. Starting from philosopher René Girard’s theory that “desire arises from imitation of others,” he ultimately arrived at Leo Strauss’s ideal of “governance by the philosopher-king.”

Born in 1967, Peter Thiel moved to Namibia at age 4. At that time, South Africa and Namibia were under apartheid and colonial rule, representing the longest-lasting regime since World War II. This period shaped his obsession with the “West.” Returning to California at age 10, he had already read Ayn Rand’s works before entering Stanford University in 1985.

While studying at Stanford in 1987, Thiel founded the conservative magazine Stanford Review. Amid many universities shifting toward diversity education, he built a bastion of anti-authoritarian ideology. The network of intellectuals formed during this period later evolved into the dominant group known as the “PayPal Mafia.”

However, Thiel faced his greatest mental crisis after 9/11. As government security industry investments accelerated, this was a paradox for libertarians opposed to authority. Cooperate and oppose freedom; refuse and oppose the West. Leo Strauss’s philosophy saved him from this dilemma.

Strauss presented a spiritual spectrum from ancient Greece to Rome, equating Western civilization with human civilization itself. Issues like homosexuality, civil rights, and slavery became elements of a republic that excludes foreigners, and they became the final pieces of Thiel’s ideological system.

In short, Thiel believes: Western civilization must become great again, and the path is through removing regulatory barriers via technological innovation. From colonizing Mars to life sciences extending lifespan, everything should be accelerated. If human progress speeds up so rapidly that it cannot be stopped, the ancient Greek ideals will be recreated—that is his long-term vision.

Thiel’s investment empire: From PayPal to AI and cryptocurrencies

From the 1990s to the early 2000s, Thiel’s career rapidly expanded.

In 1998, he co-founded Confinity with Max Levchin, experimenting with digital currency. At that time, internet dollarization had not yet begun, and credit cards were the primary cashless payment method. But Thiel was not only interested in libertarian theories; he also saw practical advantages in regulatory arbitrage. The gambling industry desperately needed internet remittances in US dollars.

In 1999, PayPal officially launched. Its system allowed free transfers via email without complex approval processes, symbolizing freedom for Americans. In 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion, and Thiel’s net worth reached $55 million. He achieved financial freedom at age 35.

His subsequent investment strategy was calculated. In 2003, he founded Palantir, which used big data to detect signals for terrorism prevention. Serving clients like the CIA and security agencies, the company demonstrated a practical way to resolve ideological contradictions. In 2004, he invested $500,000 in Facebook, acquiring 10.2% of shares. This investment later ballooned to over $1 billion in value.

In 2005, Founders Fund was established. Its publicly stated goal was not “making money,” but creating technological products for humanity—AI, cryptocurrencies, and hard tech. The fund prioritized genuine technological innovation over superficial 140-character debates.

By 2025, Thiel’s net worth reached $20.8 billion, ranking 103rd among the world’s wealthiest. But more important than the numbers is the shift in the power balance between the East and West Coast.

Before him, the West Coast was dominated by tech elites, and the East Coast by finance and politics. As businesses grew, entrepreneurs had to participate in Washington’s political game. But if technology and finance merge, the political power balance itself shifts. This means the exclusion of traditional Wall Street elites and the dominance of tech magnates over the US.

Tech oligarch Peter Thiel: From Silicon Valley to political infiltration

The 2016 presidential election was a turning point. In the Silicon Valley world loyal to the Democratic Party, Thiel bet on Trump. Remarkably, even after losing in 2020, Thiel continued to invest in Trump, and in 2022, he withdrew from Meta’s board.

If George Soros is the “bright line” of the Democratic Party, Thiel is the “dark line” of the Republican Party. Yet both pursue the same goal through different approaches. Soros hides ideology within politics, while Thiel uses money as an ideology.

Thiel’s ultimate goal is not personal gain or rights expansion but the survival of Western civilization as an imagined super-community. He envisions an ancient Greek-style city-state model, where the rule of the philosopher-king is realized—a fantasy.

In 2011, he criticized Silicon Valley in a speech, claiming it pursues false innovation and turns away from humanity’s true cutting-edge technology. Among his audience was J.D. Vance, who would later become Vice President under Trump.

Recipients of the Thiel Fellowship are also his ideological disciples, including Figma CEO Dylan Field and Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin. This “network investment” was not just financial but a shared ideology and practical control structure.

After Trump’s rise, practitioners in cryptocurrencies, fintech, and AI on the West Coast began replacing traditional Wall Street elites. David Sacks became the White House’s cryptocurrency advisor. This is not just personnel change but a major shift in American political structure.

The phrase “Musk shouts, Thiel executes” hints at their different roles. Musk generates social debate through radical claims, while Thiel quietly reorganizes power structures.

In conclusion: Rebirth of the West or illusion?

From the founding of Stanford Review to Trump’s return to the presidency, Thiel has achieved a new conservatism in the most free Silicon Valley and brought a dual power balance to the deeply rooted Washington.

In this process, he transformed next-generation technologies like cryptocurrencies, AI, and hard tech from mere investments into practical means for the revival of Western civilization. His accelerationist approach links nostalgia for ancient Greece with a longing for the future.

However, the greatest contradiction is that Thiel refused “honorable decline” in the face of Western decline. Instead, he chose an ideal of Western revival through rational acceleration. But rational Westernity has no place for God. Even defining Western itself is difficult.

Ultimately, Thiel’s ideological system is a grand attempt to reconstruct Western spirit from ancient Greek rationality. Whether it succeeds or merely becomes a new ideological illusion, only future history will tell.

What is certain is that Thiel’s influence, penetrating from Silicon Valley into politics and global power structures, continues to expand.