Billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel’s relationship with former President Donald Trump may have improved after Trump chose Thiel’s top pick of Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate.
The relationship between Trump and Thiel, who co-founded PayPal, turned sour in 2023 after Thiel declined to support Trump’s reelection campaign. However, in an interview with the New York Times, Thiel, for the first time since Vance was chosen, expressed that he was more “hopeful” for a second Trump term than he was before.
“I always try to resist getting swept up in excitement,” Thiel, a former employer and Vance mentor, told the New York Times. “But in spite of many misgivings I had earlier this year, it makes me more hopeful that a second Trump term will be better than the first.”
The Times reported that Thiel and other prominent Silicon Valley figures were hoping Trump would settle on Vance.
During the 2022 midterm elections, Thiel backed his former employees Vance and Blake Masters, the latter of whom ran an unsuccessful Senate campaign in Arizona. Thiel invested a total of $35 million in the election cycle but has since expressed a desire to reduce his involvement in partisan politics. He donated $1 million to Trump’s first presidential campaign in 2016 but made no contributions in 2020 and has yet to donate for Trump’s third campaign in 2024. Thiel was reportedly disappointed with the Trump administration, feeling it failed to fulfill some campaign promises while in office.
According to the New York Times, Vance’s nomination for vice president suggests that the Trump campaign might be closely monitoring major donors like Thiel. Vance also received support from other Silicon Valley mega-donors, including tech entrepreneur David Sacks and Palantir adviser Jacob Helberg, as well as from Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr.
That said, though Thiel introduced Vance to Trump at the start of 2021, he has said he isn’t going to donate to any super PACs.
