Billionaire investor Peter Thiel does not think the US should have started the war with Iran – a notable break from one of President Trump’s most loyal supporters less than two weeks ahead of the midterm elections.
The Palantir and PayPal co-founder worth $37 billion, according to Forbes, reportedly revealed his disapproval in remarks during a private event on Oct. 12 as part of a lecture series he was giving in Nashville.
“I’m skeptical of [the war], I think we should not have done it,” Thiel said in audio recordings obtained by Politico. “There were a lot of mistakes that were made.”
“Maybe we don’t have the hard power. Maybe we’re going to lose the soft power war,” he added.
Thiel made clear throughout the lecture that he is strongly against neoconservatives and wars in the Middle East, and that he is still supportive of Trump, according to the report.
His comments mark one of the strongest criticisms from a close Trump ally of the president’s operations in Iran, which began in February.
Thiel was the first prominent Silicon Valley figure to back Trump in the 2016 presidential election. He donated $1.25 million to Trump’s campaign at the time and gave a speech at the Republican National Convention.
Republicans are fighting to hold onto congressional seats in the highly-anticipated midterms, as Americans increasingly report economic anxiety.
The Strait of Hormuz crisis in the Middle East has sent global energy costs surging, keeping gasoline prices above $4 a gallon and threatening to raise prices on everything from food and apparel to furniture and toys.
In his Nashville lecture, the techie investor also sounded the alarm over the powers of the International Criminal Court, nodding to comments from members of former President George W. Bush’s administration like the late Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, Politico reported.
“I read the Cheney family’s Trump derangement syndrome as an attempt to buy favor with the [International Criminal Court] and avoid prosecution. Probably too late,” Thiel said.
“And I have come to suspect that the threat of an ICC arrest warrant is the sword of Damocles hanging over the Trump administration as it tries to persecute this war in Iran.”
He also discussed a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in early 2024, after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attack.
Thiel said Netanyahu told him, “I can’t just Dresden-ize it” – a reference to the Allied bombing of Dresden, Germany, during World War II. The joint attacks by UK and US forces sparked a firestorm and killed an estimated 25,000 people, mostly civilians.