Peter Thiel slams ‘not very smart’ White House officers, warns of dem socialist specter | Latest Tech News
Billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel dinged the Trump administration for having “not very smart” officers who are hindering the GOP’s probabilities in future elections, warning that they may very well be paving the way in which for a democratic socialist takeover.
Thiel, who has close ties to the White House, also went into the dangerous results of AI doomerism as he shared his views on President Trump’s staffing points.
“The first administration brought in all these people who couldn’t agree, and it was just all this internal fighting,” Thiel said in a podcast shared Saturday.
Peter Thiel spoke with Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner on topics including AI security and US President Donald Trump’s employees. AFP via Getty Images
“The second administration I think had all these — they overcorrected for the mistake of the first term with all these loyalty tests,” he continued. “You got sort of, you know, an administration staffed by not very smart, but very loyal people. And so, there are all sorts of ways it can be criticized.”
The feedback to Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner marked an uncommon rebuke from Thiel, a main Silicon Valley investor who famously took Vice President JD Vance under his wing before the protégé entered politics.
Thiel, who last week obtained the “Axel Springer Award 2026” in Berlin, appeared to be referencing job interview questions that civil servants described as a “loyalty test” — which a decide blocked earlier this month.
Thiel, and a strong supporter of Trump’s 2016 White House run, certified his criticism a bit.
“My fast answer is, you should ask me in 10 years or so, and we’ll see in 10 years how it all works out,” said the co-founder of Palantir, PayPal and the Founders Fund.
Thiel, who has close ties to the White House, said the first and second Trump administrations have had different varieties of staffing points. ZUMAPRESS.com
Still, he sounded bitter on short-term prospects for the US, saying Democrats will triumph in the November midterms — and the far-left department of the social gathering could even take the White House in 2028.
“I would put the odds at roughly 50% that a democratic socialist wins the presidency in 2028,” he said,
“When 70% of millennials say they are pro-socialist, we need to do better than simply dismiss them by saying that they are stupid or entitled or brainwashed,” Thiel added. “If you proletarianize young people with student debt and unaffordable housing, don’t be surprised when they end up turning to socialism.”
Asked for remark on Thiel’s remarks, White House spokesman Davis Ingle told The Post: “No one can dispute the fact that President Trump has created one of the most sturdy coalitions in political historical past with the MAGA motion, and the president understands how to talk with them.
“President Trump is the unequivocal leader, best messenger, and unmatched motivator for the Republican Party, and he is committed to maintaining Republican majorities in Congress,” he added, pointing to tax cuts Trump signed into law, his prescription drug program and powerful border coverage, among other insurance policies.
On AI, Thiel pushed back against the latest wave of doomerism and calls from the likes of Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to slow down development of the tech.
If leaders do so, “the cure might well be far worse than the disease,” Thiel opined.
“The realistic outcome of global calls to pause is empty international summits where the West slows itself down while authoritarian rivals accelerate,” he added.
“That is why issuing moral regulatory statements or encyclicals on AI is strategically equivalent to giving a gift to the Chinese Communist Party. The Communist Party of China is not going to listen to the Pope.”
He also warned that worldwide calls for an AI slowdown raise the prospect of a “one-world government.”
AI giants Anthropic and OpenAI have collectively called for stiffer US regulation of AI and a coordinated slowdown on development amid rising public fears the tech may run amok and pose existential dangers to humanity.
“In theory, you could slow it down if you had genuine deep cooperation across the whole world. But I think that would require one-world government with real teeth,” Thiel said. “And the sort of classical-liberal part of me thinks that’s almost frying pan into fire. It’s a cure that’s worse than the disease.”
AI giants Anthropic and OpenAI have collectively called for stiffer US regulation of the tech and a coordinated slowdown on development amid rising public fears that AI may run amok and pose existential dangers to humanity.
Critics have slammed the AI giants’ calls for slowdowns as self-serving and meant only to stop opponents from developing rival systems.
Thiel panned the choice to persevering with to develop AI at a speedy tempo.
“There’s a picture that people implicitly have that the alternative to AI, let’s say a zero growth world where there’s no progress at all, will somehow be this peaceful social democratic society, and I don’t think that’s true,” he said.
The Post has sought remark from the White House.
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