Do we like them?Do we like Peter Thiel?
Our score: 4 out of 10. Real worries on climate rhetoric and political money, a thin verified record of good, and no hate aimed at LGBTQ+ people in what we read.
Peter Thiel is the Silicon Valley power broker behind PayPal and Palantir, and an early investor in Facebook. Axel Springer's own award announcement credits him with those, plus backing companies in AI, biotech and space. He is less a celebrity than a kingmaker with a chequebook, which is why his fingerprints turn up everywhere.
The story that made him famous outside tech is Gawker. In 2016 it emerged that he had secretly financed Hulk Hogan's privacy suit, which ended in a judgment of about $140 million and pushed Gawker into bankruptcy. Coverage at the time tied his motive to the site's earlier outing of him, and he declined to comment on the bankruptcy. Whether you call that justice for a privacy invasion or a billionaire killing a newsroom depends on where you stand on press freedom.
Now the harm check. Fortune reported on leaked recordings of his lecture series in which he described the modern Antichrist as a “Luddite who wants to stop all science” and said “It's someone like Greta.” Thunberg declined to comment. Fortune also reported he links climate activism and tech regulation to an end-times struggle. Cast climate campaigners as end-of-the-world villains and the planet is not well served.
The political money is the other worry. He gave $15 million to the super PAC that backed JD Vance's 2022 Senate run and $1.25 million to Trump in 2016, after the Access Hollywood tape surfaced. In April 2024 he reportedly turned down a request from Trump for $10 million. In a 2009 essay he wrote: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” That's a worldview, not a smoking gun, but it is the company a reader should know about.
On LGBTQ+ issues the record is odd rather than hostile. He spoke at the 2016 Republican convention and described himself as gay, and criticised the platform's culture-war fights. We found no campaign of his own against trans people or LGBTQ+ rights. We also found no statements from him on vaccines or migrants, though Palantir, the company he co-founded, sells to governments.
On the court record, he was one of 11 defendants in a Delaware shareholder suit against Meta, in which shareholders alleged failures to protect Facebook users' data. It settled on the second day of trial in July 2025, with terms not public. Separately, the Nation reported on a leak of his invitation-only Dialog retreat guest list, which includes officials and tech executives. Being on a guest list proves nothing, but it shows how close he sits to power.