The Strange Politics of Peter Thiel, Trump’s Most Unlikely Supporter
22nd July 2016
Bloomberg Business Week, Voice of the Crust, carries the water.
When Peter Thiel has the first move in a chess game, he lifts his e2 pawn, the fifth from the left and the one directly in front of his king, and advances it two spaces. It’s an aggressive tactic, putting the bishop and queen into play, which is why Thiel likes it.
Note that this traditional ‘pawn to King 4‘ move is how an overwhelming majority of chess games start. Warning! Thumbsucker ahead!
His status as ringleader of the PayPal Mafia, the network of former employees and co-founders that includes SpaceX’s Elon Musk and LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman, makes him one of Silicon Valley’s most influential and admired figures; his iconoclastic politics make him a subject of amusement. Not coincidentally, and disconcertingly to many of those close to him, Thiel is also one of Donald Trump’s most prominent backers.
When he was just another gay tech CEO, presumably fashionably progressive, he was one of the crowd; endorsing Trumjp, however, makes his politics ‘strange’. All Hail the Narrative!