Peter Thiel: 'Almost everybody (tech CEO) I know' shifted right

At Culture, Religion & Tech, take II in Miami on October 29, 2024

Culture, Religion & Technology, take II is a wrap! Nearly 300 people attended the event held October 29, 2024 at Miami Dade College and hosted by the Economic Club of Miami and Vator. It was sponsored by the Freedom Foundation, IronGate Capital Advisors, We Over Me, Folio Capital and Mercantile Banco. 

The event was emceed by Francisco Gonzalez, Director of the Economic Club of Miami, with notable remarks by Jon Hartley, Board member of the Economic Club. 

The main event was my fireside conversation with Peter Thiel, famed investor and entrepreneur, and notable politically for endorsing now President-elect Donald Trump at the RNC in 2016 and for backing J.D. Vance in his successful run to be senator in 2022. Paul Martino, partner at Bullpen Capital, introduced the fireside. 

Thiel has backed off from the political limelight but has not shied away from publicly saying he wouldn't be voting for Kamala Harris. 

His remarks confirm an interesting conservative conversion amongst so-called "tech bros."

There's a lot of different reasons why they're shifting right. Famed entrepreneur and investor Marc Andreessen lays it out on X in his defense of "Little tech" - which is another term he and his partner and co-founder of a16z Ben Horowitz use for the word "startup." Andreessen posts: "The American government is now far more hostile to new startups than it used to be." For instance, he points out: "the government is currently proposing a tax on unrealized capital gains, which would absolutely kill both startups and the venture capital industry that funds them." For his part, Horowitz is critical of the Biden administration positions as they've been "exceptionally destructive on tech policy across the industry, but especially as it relates to Crypto/Blockchain and AI."  

Other tech notables are concerned about the cultural and religious ideologies taking over, such as DEI - diversity, equity and inclusion. Shaun Maguire, a partner at Sequoia Capital, made that clear in an X post: "DEI was the most effective KGB opp of all time." Fellow Sequoia partner Doug Leone pointed to the "broken immigration system" as his rationale for voting for Trump. Leone expressed a sigh of relief post-election with this post: "To all Trump voters: you no longer have to hide in the shadows…..you’re the majority!!"  

Other tech titans, like Apple's Tim Cook to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, haven't been vocal about their rationale, but reportedly began reaching out to Trump prior to the election.  

The LA Times has a good write-up on the other tech bros who've supported Trump and in the case of Oculus and Anduril founder Palmer Lucky, have been ostracized because of their support. Other tech giants mentioned include Joe Lonsdale, David Sacks and Balaji Srinivasan. 

It's worth noting that not all tech bros backed Trump. a16z's Horowitz supported Kamala Harris due to his longstanding friendship with her. And Sequoia Capital VC Mike Moritz stands firm against Trump, saying he's puzzled that people are OK with Trump's character. “Why then do they dismiss his recent criminal conviction as nothing more than a politically inspired witch-hunt over a simple book-keeping error?” There's also LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, who has been very vocal about his support for Biden and Harris.  

Now that we're post election and Trump had an overwhelming win people no longer have to hide their views. Sequoia's Leone expressed it well: "To all Trump voters: you no longer have to hide in the shadows…..you’re the majority!!"

Will they come out publicly? Probably.  

In my fireside with Peter Thiel, he said this: “I would say every single person I know who I think of as a successful tech CEO has shifted [right] quite a bit… while they may not vote for Trump, they are in very different places than they were six or seven years ago,” he said, adding. “I don't know how widespread it is, but I want to say almost everybody I know who is in a CEO or founder role at these companies has shifted very dramatically, and I trust what they tell me, and I don't trust what they feel they have to say in public.”

Thiel also spoke about Elon Musk. Importantly, he talks about why his rationale to vote for Trump was more about voting against Harris. As our conversation was largely around religion, write-ups about our conversation are on Weoverme, a news site that covers the news through a biblical lens. Read here: "The diversity of the silent shift right."