Factually! with Adam Conover - America’s Secret Technofacist Overlord, with Max Chafkin

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

You’ve almost certainly heard Peter Thiel’s name. You very likely even have an opinion about him. But how much do you actually know about him? One of the most powerful people in America is also one of the most secretive, because that lack of public visibility gives him much more room to exercise a scary amount of control over our country. This week, Adam gets the in-depth scoop on Peter Thiel with Bloomberg Business Week reporter Max Chafkin, who recently authored the book The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power.Find Max’s book at factuallypod.com/books--SUPPORT THE SHOW ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/adamconoverSEE ADAM ON TOUR: https://www.adamconover.net/tourdates/SUBSCRIBE to and RATE Factually! on:» Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/factually-with-adam-conover/id1463460577» Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0fK8WJw4ffMc2NWydBlDyJAbout Headgum: Headgum is an LA & NY-based podcast network creating premium podcasts with the funniest, most engaging voices in comedy to achieve one goal: Making our audience and ourselves laugh. Listen to our shows at https://www.headgum.com.» SUBSCRIBE to Headgum: https://www.youtube.com/c/HeadGum?sub_confirmation=1» FOLLOW us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/headgum» FOLLOW us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/headgum/» FOLLOW us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headgum» Advertise on Factually! via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a headgum podcast. Extra value meals are back. For just $5, get a savory and sweet sausage egg and cheese mcgrittles, plus hash browns and a coffee. Only at McDonald's. For limited time only, prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska, and California, and for delivery. I don't know the truth.

I don't know the way. I don't know what to think. I don't know what to think. Hey, but that's all right. That's okay. I don't know anything. Hey, everybody, welcome to Factually. I'm Adam Kanover.

I'm delighted to have you with me on the show again, because today we're talking about Peter Thiel. Peter Thiel is one of the most powerful people in America, but a lot of Americans still don't know his name because he is also one of the shadowiest power players in America. And on top of that, he's also one of the most terrifying. Teal is the billionaire co-founder of PayPal, and he's also a key intellectual architect of techno-fascism.

And I know that seems like a strong term, but that is what we have to call it. It's this widespread belief among first venture capitalists in Silicon Valley and now people at the highest echelons of our government, that they, the people in charge of the tech industry, should rule over us instead of we, the people, governing ourselves via democracy. This is a real transformation

that is happening in America right now via the tech industry and our government and Peter Teal's fingerprints are all over it. Let's start at the top. Teal employed J.D. Vance at his investment fund,

fresh out of law school, and then bankrolled Vance's Senate campaign. J.D. Vance is quite literally Peter Teal's creation. And he's not the only Teal guy in government. Employees of PayPal, Teal's investment funds, his data mining surveillance,

company Palantir, which has huge contracts with the federal government, and his multi-billion dollar defense company and derrille, populate the federal government. Teal guys are in Doge at the Department of Defense, the Department of Health and Human Services, and in the White House. And even beyond the government, Teal has also had an extreme impact on our culture. You know how the Trump administration has been going to war with the very concept of free speech lately? Well, Teal was ahead of the curve on that.

After being outed by the Gawker blog Valleywag in 2007, Teal secretly funded a lawsuit by the wrestler Hulk Hogan against the entire company. And this lawsuit was so damaging, it led to Gawker and all of its associated blogs filing for bankruptcy. And, you know, he's not just content to attack and shut down entire journalism outfits. He wants to attack the entire industry. In 2011, Teal griped about the totalitarianism of political correctness in media and academia. So the Trump administration's, you know, whole attacks against the free press and the universities themselves are his dream coming true.

Huh, maybe that's why he helped bankroll the entire Trump campaign. And it turns out that being a paranoid Christian techno-fascist is good for business because despite his alleged libertarian leanings, teal's company's close ties with the government have helped increase his net worth by nearly $9 billion in the last year. But, you know, Teal is still a shadowy figure. He doesn't want people to know who he is and what he does. So I think we need to ask, who is this guy and what the fuck is he doing to our country? What kind of power does he have and what kind of country is he trying to create?

Well, to dive into that today, we have an incredible expert on the show. He's written a literal book on Teal and everything that he doesn't want you to know about him. And we're going to get into that on this week's episode. Before we do, I want to remind you that if you want to remind you that if you want to I want to support this show. You can do so on Patreon. Head to patreon.com slash Adam Khan. Over five bucks a month,

get you every episode of the show, ad free. You're going to also join our online community. We would love to have you. And, of course, if you'd like to come see me do stand-up comedy on the road, you know, be in person, laugh with some of your fellow human beings and take a load off. Doesn't that sound nice right about now? Well, coming up soon, December 4th, I'll be in D.C., December 5th through 6th, I'll be in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and you know what we're at new shows all the time.

So by the time this comes out, there might be new ones already added. head to Adam Conover.net for all those tickets and tour dates. And now, let's get to this week's episode about Peter Teal. Max Chaffkin is a reporter at Bloomberg Business Week and the author of The Contrarian, Peter Teal and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power. He is so well equipped to talk to us about this mysterious figure and all the terrifying changes he is trying to make to America. Please welcome, Max Chafkin.

Hey, Max, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you for having me. Let's jump into it. Who the fuck is Peter Thiel? Why do I keep hearing his name? What kind of power and influence does this man have? And where did he get it? All right.

Peter Thiel is probably one of the most important venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. Like one of the key investors who has helped build many of the tech companies that people have heard of. He was probably most famously the first investor in Facebook, you know, basically the first person to really see in Mark Zuckerberg a, you know, like something other. than a guy who had gotten thrown out of Harvard. He co-founded Palantir, the data mining company. He was a key investor in SpaceX, Elon Musk's rocket company. And it sort of goes on and on. He's like one of the main tech guys.

And that's where I kind of started paying attention to him. I am a technology journalist. I write about tech for Bloomberg and Businessweek. And I really think all of that stuff would have been enough to justify a book, if not for the fact that, you know, starting in 2016, when he endorsed Donald Trump, he became this major player in Republican politics, as well as a major player in the tech industry. You know, he was basically the first business guy to get behind Trump, donate a bunch of money. He also kind of helped create J.D. Vance's political career.

So he's this, like, super well-connected investor. His investment group is called the PayPal Mafia, which relates to the fact that he co-founded this company called PayPal. So he's got this thing called the PayPal Mafia. They kind of work together to help each other and start companies and so on. And he's also got kind of his own like little conservative mafia, which kind of comprises a bunch of the folks who are now becoming very, very influential in Washington. You know, J.D. Vance, most importantly, but also kind of Elon Musk,

kind of David Sacks, who's another Trump advisor, and so a bunch of these figures. He's this figure of power and mystery in Silicon Valley. Yeah, I mean, he's got this reputation as being a sort of like almost shadowy puppet master figure, you know, you always see his name pop up of, oh, look at this organization. Behind it actually is Peter Thiel, right? That he's sort of working behind the sidelines, putting his money in strategically, in order to push the country in a particular direction. Is that correct?

And what direction is that? So, yes, he is, he's like a puppet master, like you said. I think kind of on, in some corners of the left or whatever, they see him kind of as like almost like a supervillian. Like the way that people sometimes on the right talk about George Soros or something, they talk about Peter Thiel that way. He, in terms of like shadowy stuff, the thing I probably should have mentioned earlier but didn't, is that he secretly funded

the destruction of Gawker Media essentially because he was mad at them for an article that they published. And sorry, this is the first time I heard of him was he destroyed, he maliciously destroyed those companies in response to them

outing him as a gay man or at least publishing the fact that he was a gay man. I think they would have argued what, that he was actually out, they just like reported on it. I mean, they said the story from Gawker at the time

and if you talked to some of the people who were involved in that as I did when I was writing my book they said well it was kind of an open secret it's not like people at his venture capital firm didn't know he was gay I think from a kind of

the way we talk about outing they outed him you know like there's a difference between people in your family your close friends knowing your sexuality versus like the whole world knowing it and so yeah

he was mad about that And, you know, there are obviously different ways that one could try to address a grievance. And the way he did it was secretly funding Polk Hogan's lawsuit. So it's like it goes really deep into weird lore and stuff. But Hulk Hogan had a separate beef with Gawker over the publication of a sex tape. He sued them and Teal basically paid his legal bills and pushed the case forward in an attempt, essentially to bankrupt Gawker and to exact punishment on the editor of Gawker. Nick Denton, and he succeeded. I mean, he succeeded wildly. They indeed went bankrupt,

Denton went bankrupt. And that became like a calling card for him, especially like within conservative circles. He showed up at the RNC in 2016, you know, shortly after he had revealed himself to be the guy behind the Gawker stuff. And like the way that Republicans saw him then was as this kind of like right-wing crusader, a guy. who was sort of taking it to the lips and who was also behind all these important companies and who was a supporter of Donald Trump. So what is his ideology and where does he get it from? So his ideology, I mean, he's, it's similar to Trump in a lot of ways.

Like he favors restrictions on immigration. He kind of helped pioneer the, some of the things that we think of as like, right, wing culture wars. So like this, this, um, fixation on the right, uh, with sort of like wokeness and everything, uh, which has become like, you know, a really big deal. Uh, Teal kind of pioneered that when he was a college student and he started like a conservative in the 80s. Um, uh, had a different, at the time, you know, they're, instead of saying woke, they were saying like political correctness, but, you know, basically meeting the same thing. And, but I think all of that is probably like less important to his ideology.

than what he believes about sort of tech companies and the role of like tech guys in our society. And that ideology is basically like, to put it bluntly, like these tech guys should be able to do whatever they want, whenever they want. And that allowing tech companies essentially complete free reign to bend the rules, even break the rules, to collect data, to, you know, disregard,

environmental regulations, like all of that. That is how we as a society will move forward. Like that is what how he considers like the, essentially the source of progress and any forces kind of pushing back in that are dangerous in his mind. And I think, and you know, that, I mean, you can see that in a lot of tech companies that have developed since then. And I think like he, like I said, he's this kind of like father figure of the entire tech industry. And that, that belief is so important in so many of these companies and so many of these founders that people will have heard of, you know, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and so on. Where does that belief come from? Because, look, I know it's endemic in Silicon Valley that,

you know, technology is the way of the future you don't want to get in the way of technology. And you can make an argument for that, that, you know, science and engineering are human progress. We want those to advance. Those are high values. We want to be able to let those people do what they do, right? I would agree with that about science. science generally, that science should be largely unfettered. Engineering is a different thing. But, you know, you could sort of make that argument. But, like, he's just, this guy's a money guy.

You know what I mean? Like, he's, he's the venture capitalist. Why does he consider venture capitalists like him to be exceptional to such a degree that, like, he should be calling the shots? You know, what's the basis for such a belief? I mean, I think, so first of all, Like, I think what you're saying is totally true. Like, and most people agree with it, right?

Like, we shouldn't try to, society should not try to deliberately hold back scientists. It also shouldn't try to deliberately hold back, you know, business people who are trying to employ people. Like, I think most people basically agree with that, no matter what your politics are. But, like, it starts to get complicated, obviously, once you're, once whatever it is you're doing starts to, like, infringe on others. You know, he came of age. So, like I said, he, um,

I mean, his career is fascinating. He went to Stanford. He gets super involved in conservative politics. He starts this kind of like conservative political group at Stanford University around a newspaper called the Stanford Review. There were a lot of these cropping up in the 80s and 90s. Like Ann Coulter started one. I think she was at Cornell. And, you know, with similar funding and doing kind of similar stuff.

And he sort of pivots this kind of trolling. campus conservative movement into a tech company which is PayPal and a lot of the guys from his who were who he knew from the Stanford Review get involved with PayPal and PayPal for people who like don't remember

whatever like it started as a way most people think of it as like oh it's how you buy stuff on eBay which is how it started or it's like how you split the tab right and now we have Venmo and things like it's how you split the tab how you send money to a friend teal saw PayPal

as having like a revolutionary possibility, like as a way to take the power of money away from governments and banks and so on. And early on, we've sort of gone through this with crypto where like you had all these crypto entrepreneurs and they were essentially like breaking the normal rules, but they're saying like,

hey, this is a future, you got to just kind of go with this. And that all played out in the 90s with PayPal where there were like lots, lots of states who were trying to crack down on PayPal because it wasn't, because it was really great for money launderers and they weren't like doing that much to stop it, you know, just like crypto today. And, and, you know, there were gambling rules and people were using it to gamble. People were like using it to do things that are either illegal or like not allowed. Sure. I mean,

we have, we have hundreds of years of laws and regulations around banks because banks have very often hurt people. They've resulted in financial crises or they've aided and abetted criminal enterprises or whatever. There's all these rules. And PayPal is another one, you know, a standard Silicon Valley. Hey, we are not a bank. We're just a way to store and send money digitally. Exactly. Like through a ledger, which of course is a bank, but because they argue there's something else, they're exempt from all those regulations. So of course, they immediately start being used for all those harmful things. This is exactly, you know, it's a pattern we see over and over again with tech companies. Yeah, and I think, and like sort of following this playbook, basically like ignoring

rules and just like getting users as quickly as you can, like back, it's hard to forget like what was going on back then. And the numbers all seem so small. Like all these companies like PayPal sold for more a little more than a billion dollars, which sounds like nothing today. Like Elon Musk is worth $400 billion. There's a lot of money back then. Anyway, they had a lot of success by basically following this playbook. And so, and that kind of turned into how he thought business should be done. And, and it kind of merged with some of the existing kind of right wing ideology that was part of who he was. Like, he's a fan of Iron Rand. Like, like, some of this stuff is just like, normal libertarianism, normal conservatism. And it kind of merges with Silicon Valley and this,

and this sense that, like, you can, like, hypercharge change by being on the internet and by, like, getting a lot of users quickly and maybe it involves money, maybe it involves communication, but that you can kind of,

like, change the world very quickly and very quickly, like, dump existing institutions by essentially following this playbook, by just doing it. And you see that in Facebook's early years, right? Like, Facebook, was constantly

regulators and even consumers were constantly getting mad at Facebook for essentially like violating people's privacy. I don't know if you remember when they like ruined Christmas one year in like the late 2000s because like they had some new

advertising product that would like put what you gave somebody for Christmas in your Facebook feed. So you like try to, you bought something on Amazon it would show up in your Facebook feed. Anyway. Right, right, right.

And you know, there's more like that was just like tiny microcosm, but they're like constantly like putting people in positions that were uncomfortable. And like over a decade, you know, they built up this gigantic social network and became, like I would argue, like the most powerful like media entity the world has ever known. And so, and you know, same thing with Uber. You know, Uber goes through American cities and basically ignores taxi rules and essentially says like, do something about it. And, and it was hard for cities to do something. And they eventually

surrendered. And now Uber has essentially, like, destroyed the existing, like, taxi business in many cities. And I think with all those examples, like, you can kind of see, like, it's, they're pros and cons. And, and, like, the, the, it's, it's like, talking about whether a tech company should, like, play by the rules doesn't matter as much when it's small. When it's startup, it's like, I don't, I think, again, like, I think most people, like, don't think small companies or startups need to, like, necessarily be as compliant as big ones, but it starts to get kind of crazy once you're talking about, you know, like, nine out of the 10 most valuable companies in the world are tech companies now. And so, and like these, like, suddenly you have

these big platform companies that are essentially, like, you know, running our lives and, and running our lives with like almost no oversight whatsoever by regulators like in any country, except maybe in China where like they have their own big tech companies that kind of run everyone's lives in a way that's like maybe even scarier than these ones. So so like it's it's it's it's just like the ideology on a small scale can seem like pretty benign or even attractive. And then in a large scale it creates all these unintended consequences. Yeah. I mean what you're talking about is techno-fascism is the idea that these technology companies should be the ones in charge of how the government runs, how our society

functions. And I'm really struck by the fact that PayPal, you said he founded it with the people from his conservative campus newspaper that so much of this is the college right wingers fantasy come to life. And that's directly what the project was. I mean, Ein Rand is like, you know, laughable because, you know, everybody knows that kid who, you know, wore a suit jacket to class and, like, was really into Ayn Rand. And then I tried to read Ayn Rand and I was like, this is true.

I tried to read Atlas Shrugged. I was like, let me read the book. And I was like, this is one of the worst novels I've ever read. Unreadable. Drek. Horrible. Garbage. Um, but some people, they, they get really into it.

They also like reading the Lord of the Rings. And then they build their identities around that. And you're like, okay, eventually they'll like join a think tank or whatever. But this guy built, uh, an entire, uh, an entire. tech empire with aspirations to rule over the rest of us and did it based on the like from that starting point um like that that was really what it was he's i mean he's first of all he would not laugh at your when you demean a iron like that like that that is those are fighting words to peter teal uh he's he i mean iran was such he remains a big fan she's so so laughable like her entire

project. I was a philosophy image. I was interested in philosophy. I was reading about it. I was reading about Ayn Rand. I was reading her work. It's, it's puerile. It's garbage for children. And she also created a cult of personality around herself that was, like, is a bizarre, you know, rationalist ethos that resulted in, you know, her, like, excommunicating her lover who formerly was like the sion of her intellectual empire. I'm sorry, we don't, we can't go deep on Ayn Rand. But it's like, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, bizarre to fall in love with as a as a intellectual project well you're talking about those guys right those guys at college who were like right you know wore the suit jacket and um and yeah that's that is

peter teal i mean and and not just it's not just peter teal in the sense that like yeah he was like a college republican who like dine ran but also like that that that his grievance with how he was treated for being that guy right became a big motivator for him and and i mean i think this you know You're saying it's my fault for making fun of those kids. That's what you're saying. I mean, I did talk to a few people who went to college with them who felt, you know, a little tiny, tiniest bit like they might have created a monster by not, if they had been a little nicer, you know. But the thing that's interesting, too, is so, you know, I've been talking about PayPal.

And PayPal was actually two companies. There's a company that Peter Thiel had, which was him and his buddies from Stanford. essentially, and mostly these Stanford review guys who had kind of conservative politics and, you know, wanted to take over the world and get rich and all that. But then there was this other tech company that was like literally across the hall from PayPal when it was getting started in in 99. And that company was started by Elon Musk. It was called X.com. It was a payments company. And eventually, well, not even eventually, like a year after that, they essentially merged. They were competitors. And Elon Musk and Peter Thiel became

business partners and and they and they renamed it PayPal and you know and that helped make Elon Musk very rich. It also led to like a grievance on Elon Musk's part because Peter Teal essentially ousted him from the combined company and and got rid of the X name and you can kind of see you know X.com that that probably sounds a little bit familiar because like that's the name that Elon used when he bought Twitter. That is what Twitter is called now. It's called X.com. And it's like he never got over that, you know, that like grievance or whatever.

But so Teal and Elon, they are like kind of frenemies or whatever. They're sort of rivals, but they have over the years invested in one another's companies. I mentioned SpaceX. Elon Musk's rocket company. Teal basically saved that from failing in around the time of the financial crisis. Like Elon had had a couple of rockets explode and Peter essentially gave him like the 30 million bucks, I believe it was 30 million bucks, and helped keep the company alive, essentially until it had a successful launch. And when you look at what Elon Musk did during the 2024 election, you know, helping to get Trump elected the second time, it's basically

like the Teal playbook, except done on this like mega scale, like 300 times as much money. And, you know, just this like, like all the things that Teal was doing, but like way bolder, not not in the shadows, which is how Teal likes to do it, but like in your face. Folks, it is outerwear season. And the only thing I love more than showing off my gams in warm weather is getting decked out in a chilly winter wardrobe. Ooh, lucky for me, Chubbies has certified winterproof jackets, sweatshirts, quarter zips, full zips, flannels, and even a freaking full body puffer jacket. Let me repeat that, a full body puffer jacket. I could really use that in New York City.

where I am right now. Can you hear in my voice? I'm a little bit chilly. Yeah, I think you can. And, you know, chubby stuff would really help me out with that problem. As the temps drop and the weather gets grim, their flannels, pullovers, and quarter-zips keep you warm, stylish, and ready for anything. From freezing your tail off at the football game to crush and donuts at the pumpkin patch to holding court around the bonfire. And, you know, as someone who grew up on the East Coast, I hate it when people tell me L.A. doesn't have real winters, okay? Those temperatures drop, in the evening, the overnights will chill you to the bone, and I have loved that I can depend on my Chubby's flannel overshirt as a first line of defense against a frigid night without

sacrificing style. Chubbies will have something for you no matter how cold your winters get, and did I mention, once again, full-body puffer jacket. And get this for a limited time. Chubbies is giving our listeners 20% off your purchase at Chubbies with the promo code factually at checkout. But if it's Black Friday, skip the code and take advantage of even bigger markdowns during their exclusive Black Friday sale. Just head to chubbyshorts.com. Make sure to support our show and tell them we sent you.

That's chubbyshorts.com. Folks, you know, going on the internet is like taking a walk through a big field of snow. As much as you might try to avoid it, you end up leaving big, hog and footprints everywhere you go. All kinds of your personal data, including email addresses, phone numbers, names of relatives exist out there on the internet

just waiting to be grabbed by anyone looking to exploit you. and that is why I simply have to recommend delete me, a service I've been using for years and actually truly believe it. I literally use this service before they ever advertised on the show and I rely on it to keep me and my loved ones safe. Because right now, there are people out there who are making a living off of trading your and my personal info. They're called data brokers, and they're pawning off our names, addresses,

and other personal info to anyone who is willing to cough up the cash. And I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that that sounds like, something you'd really rather not be a part of. So you really need to check out, delete me. Their teams of experts diligently hunt down your personal info, remove it from the internet and keep it gone, keeping you and your loved ones safe from bad actors. As the world gets more wired, there's been an uptick in online harassment, identity theft, and yes, even real-life stalking, all because of this easily accessible information. So why take the risk? You, your family, and your loved ones deserve to feel safe from this kind of invasion of privacy.

So check out Delete Me, not just for your security, but for your friends and family, too. Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeletMe.com.com slash Adam and use promo code Adam at checkout. That's JoinDeletMe.com slash Adam, promo code Adam. Folks, this episode is brought to you by Alma. You know, I can not tell you how many times I've encountered people who think that they are dispensing and receiving real mental health advice on social media or even worse from AI. It seems like there's a growing number of people who are turning to chatbots because they assume a real therapist is too expensive or just out of reach. And this is horrible and even kind of dangerous because, you know, in my own mental health journey, it would have helped me so much to know how easy it actually is to get affordable quality care, care that's provided by a real person with a real connection who actually understands what is going on with you or me as a human.

That is why if you are on your own mental health journey, I recommend looking at Alma. They make it easy to connect with an experienced therapist, a real person who can listen, understand, and support you through whatever challenges you're facing. Quality mental health care is not out of reach. 99% of Alma therapists accept insurance, including United Etna, Sina, and more. And there are no surprises. You will know what your sessions cost up front with Alma's cost estimator. With the help of an actual therapist who understands you, you can start seeing real improvements in your mental health.

Better with people, better with Alma. Visit helloalma.com slash factually to get started and schedule a free consultation today. That's hello-al-m-a.com slash factually. Well, and speaking of Elon, Elon is famously from South Africa. Teal spent time in South Africa, I understand. how might that have informed whatever views he may have on race and multiculturalism, I'm curious. And what are his views on that?

You know, I'm always hesitant to like put too much into this because like, you know, when Teal, well, let me just let me start with Teal first. You know, he lived in South Africa when he was in grade school, essentially. He spent, I know, a couple years between South Africa and what was then known as Southwest Africa's modern-day Namibia. At the time, Namibia, like South Africa, was an apartheid state. And his dad was in the mining industry. His dad worked at uranium mines.

And he lived, when he lived in Namibia, when he was in grade school, like basically, you know, near a uranium mine where his father worked. Now, if you know anything about the history of apartheid in South Africa, you'll know that, like, Like, there's pretty much no way to be more complicit in apartheid than to work at a uranium mine. Because not only, you know, not only is a uranium mine using labor and taking advantage of the inequities of the apartheid system, but the whole reason South Africa was mining uranium at that point was because they wanted to have a nuclear weapon so that they could defend, so that they wouldn't be forced, you know, by the United States to give up their system of apartheid. Jesus Christ, I actually didn't know that. And so, South Africa was trying to build a nuclear weapon so that they could maintain their racist apartheid state in the face of other countries being like, hey, that's racist. Yeah, they were worried that, you know, that it's the threat of sanctions and, you know, basically that the international order was going to come down on them and put them in a position where they'd have to give it up.

So, like, that, that's what they were doing. And, you know, this happens in other, this is like kind of. like Iran developing a nuclear weapon or whatever. If you're a pariah state and you want to keep going on, like being a pariah state, like doesn't hurt to have a nuclear weapon. And just to, I just want to, for those who don't remember, I just want to make this vivid. And the reason they were a pariah state is because it was a country in Africa in which a small number of white people ruled over a very large, much larger black population, which is

one of the great historical crimes of the 20th century that that went on for so long. Yeah, and absolutely. And so, so teal comes from that milieu and, but not, not in the same way as Elon Musk, who actually is South African. But I think that, but, but he did like have a connection to it. And he gets to Stanford. He comes, he's in the United States. He's actually born in Germany. He's most of his childhood in the United States. Like he doesn't speak with an accent. I mean, he's, he is American, um, in every way. Um, but he does, he does have this kind of connection to, to South Africa and to apartheid. And what was happening in the 1980s when he was in college is that a lot of the kind of like left wing activism was focused on apartheid. And it was, and like you had all these like,

you know, idealistic young people essentially like protesting, calling for boycotts. I mean, it was honestly a little bit like the time we live in, you know, right now, except instead of Gaza, you know, like your typical college student is outraged by apartheid, is trying to pressure, the administration to do things.

And I think... And rightly so, in both cases, in my view. And, like, and Teal, I think, took this personally, you know? Not, not like, you know, the same way that, like, if... Because, like, he had... And I don't, I don't mean this to excuse somebody's, like, racial politics or whatever. But I think if you're 18 years old and you, you come from, like, a specific place and, and, like, left-wingers are, like, talking about, you know, talking about this thing that's, like,

kind of connected to you. It's easy to see how somebody would, would process that as like some kind of aggression or whatever. So, and now, now I'm just speculating. But like, what I know is, like, from talking to people who went to school with him, that he would get into these, like, arguments with people in college. Now, Teal has denied this part that I'm going to say, but, like, would sometimes argue, for instance, that, like, apartheid was actually a good system. It's like a good economic system. You know, kind of like, not like, not trying to, not saying that the racism was right, but kind of like the ends justify the means type, you know, kind of libertarian. So, and, and, and saying this to like his black classmates and so on, again,

he's denied this. Uh, I'll just leave it there. But I do think that like some of the political grievance has to do with that connection to South Africa. And, and again, processing sort of like left wing, like left wing political movements as like a personal. attack. He saw it as a personal attack. And it's like, also you're saying that all of the borderline, uh, indentured servants in my dad's uranium mine were being abused. You know what? I think you might like working in the uranium mind. These are the conversations he was having according, not according to him, but according to other folks. But kind of, but you know, in that kind of in that general, in, in that general direction.

And like, I want to, I want to be careful here because like people are not responsible for their, They're not responsible for where they came from. They're not responsible for their parents' politics. You know, there are lots of people who, you know, who like didn't live in South Africa but have similar politics. But you do see this, this South African background shows up in a handful of these, like, prominent peck folks. At some point in your life, though, you do become responsible, right? You're not responsible for your background. But some people who come from that background, they go, oh, my God, that was horrible.

like when they hit when they hit 24 or when they're in college and they meet some other people and their and their horizons are broadened. Yeah. And what I'll say is like I don't think teal like teal has never expressed overt racism or overt sexism. But there are there are lots of ways where you kind of where his politics feel kind of compatible with some of the more, you know what I'm saying? like so so for so so so just coded racism and sexism yeah or i mean that's definitely what what his critics would say i mean i'm not gonna i don't want to i don't want to i don't want to i don't want to pass judgment um uh but i think i think yeah like it's you look at his you look at his like inner circle it's all white guys it's all it's all guys um you look at like the inner circle of all these

you know, like they're, you look at Doge, uh, you know, those, those pictures of the like Doge, the Doge roundtable, Elon Musk's like group on Fox News. Like, you know, what do you see about all those guys? Like, they're all this, they're all basically the same age. They all are white or mostly white. Um, they're all dudes. Um, and, you know, Teal has talked a lot about like, the West, Musk does this as well, right? Like, we got to defend the West. Like, what is that, like, what does that mean? Like, because you're not, you're not explicitly saying, we need, need to defend white culture, but it's like very hard, it's very hard to, but you're also not making space.

That's what it means. Yeah. That's what it means. I mean, I'll take the baby step and make the final leap that that is what when people say, we need to protect Western culture. They're saying white culture. That's what they mean by that. When someone says political correctness and wokeness have gone too far, they're arguing against

the racial justice movements in America that of the past 50 years that tried to end racism and and, you know, create a slightly more equal society. Like, that's what these movements are. And what they have done over the past, is they don't avertly say, we're racist. They code it. This is the world that we're living. And he's part of that movement.

You know, it's pretty straightforward to me. Like, it's a racist movement regardless of whether or not he wants to use that language. Yeah. I mean, the, what's interesting to me is, like, teal, I mean, we can talk, we can go deeper into this, but like during the 2016 election, you know, that was when the, that was like when the, when we had the rise of the alt, right. And you had all these like trolling guys saying essentially like racist, sexist stuff. And Teal like kind of, Teele kind of sometimes supported those guys. He was friendly with those guys. He didn't cast them out. He's in some cases gave them money. But he never like, he never endorsed. He never like explicitly endorsed. that stuff. It's all kind of coded and like you said, what's different about Musk is like, he's

not only, you know, like, he's not only like talking to those guys, but he's in some cases like just saying the same things, like repeating the, you know, the Great Replacement conspiracy theory or whatever. Like, I spent all this time, you know, trying to figure out like what

Teal's relationship was with like Richard Spencer, who was this, he's like a neo-Nazi. And and like, you know, Spencer, I think what I wrote in the book is that's like, Spencer tried to meet with him, but he didn't want to meet with him.

Like, he drew the line there. And, and then, like, Musk buys Twitter and just, like, brings Richard Spencer and every other, you know, every other Nazi, essentially right back to the platform. Like, like, this thing that had been kind of happening quietly and in the shadows

that I had been chasing for so long and, like, looking for these, like, hidden connections. It's just all, it's all out in the open now. It's crazy. It's very, it's at the experience for me, having watched this for like 10 years is just, it's strange. Yeah, I mean, that's been the story of the last year and a half is, is people who are doing things secretly are now just doing them in public, whether that's the, you know, Trump administration just being specifically corrupt as corrupt as possible, you know, the events of the last week as we record this where, you know, you just have the FCC commissioner just shut. you know, threatening stations because of political speech he doesn't like. You have, whatever, it has, it has been a moment where people have felt comfortable taking

the mask off because they realize there's no, uh, there's no consequence. But, um, but still, Teal has operated a lot in the shadows since then. That's what, yeah, he has not, like, he is not fully gone all in. I should say, like, he, he kind of, I mean, he is definitely close to J.D. Vance. He's an ally of J.D. Vance, like, you don't have Price President J.D. Vance without Peter Thiel for sure. But he has not wanted to get as close

to this stuff as some of these other tech guys. Like, he's not, you know, these dinners where they're all kind of like lining up trying to, like, give Trump a gift or like ask him, hey, how much money do you want me to say I'm investing in American data centers and Trump's is like 500 million? They're like, okay, 500 million. 500 billion. Like, Teal's

not a part of that. Teal's kind of trying, I think, to protect himself from some of this stuff because, I I mean, because I think there's risk for the, I mean, this is another topic, but I think there's risk for these tech guys of being so closely associated with what's happening in Washington right now. Well, or is it, is it rather that Teal is in charge so he doesn't need to go bow and scrape? Like Tim Cook is not part of the movement. And so Tim Cook has to go kiss the ring to pay, you know, obedience. But like, Teal fucking made it happen.

Like Trump is going to kiss Peter Thiel's ring, if anything, you know, the other way around. I mean, maybe that's overstating it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, Peter Thiel doesn't need to beg and plead. He's like, he can just call the guy on the phone, they're friends, you know. I would rather be Peter Thiel right now than Tim Cook for sure. And just because, like, like you said, he's got all this power. He's behind the scenes.

He doesn't have to, you know, he doesn't have to, like you said, he doesn't have to flatter Trump. I mean, you know, there is, like, there's risk on both sides. Like, you know, Trump has at times tried to hurt Peter Thiel. He, there's a, there's a congressional candidate, Blake Masters, who ran in Arizona for Senate on this, like, very far right platform. And basically, he lost his election narrowly in 2022. And after Teal got sideways with Trump, Masters was just, like, cast out. Like, he hasn't been able to, you know, he wasn't, he's not, he would think he would be in the Trump. administration. Now, he's not in the Trump administration.

He was, Trump endorsed his, um, his rival. So like there, there is potential for blowback. If, if, if he'll get sideways with Trump. But, um, but like you said, he's in a position where he's like a behind the scenes player and, and he doesn't have to, you know, present Trump with a, like, golden plaque or whatever Tim Cook did. So, so I guess I'm wondering, like, what would he be worried about? You said, oh, he doesn't want to be too closely assert. But, but, but he, he's known to have fueled the movement to have been, you know, he spoke on stage at the RNC. He's like seen as this, you know, shadowy figure behind the throne.

Who could he possibly be afraid of at this point? I mean, voters, I think. I mean, you know, like it's Trump is president today. And he has, you know, kind of low approval ratings. And like, but who's, who's going to be president in, you know, what, three years isn't? hopefully, you know, that American democracy continues. Well, yeah, and Teal is part of the attempt to remove that democracy, right? I mean, well, you know, I think, and Teal has business interests, like all these guys.

So Teal is still the largest shareholder in Palantir. Palantir has, is a major government contractor. The Trump administration has been very, very good to Palantir. Teal's net worth has soared because Palantir has. has been able to do such great business with the U.S. government. So, like, he has, he has things to gain. And he's also, like, I wrote about this in the book. I think these risks are less significant,

but, like, he has been worried for a long time over, like, the tax, things like the tax treatment of his wealth. He had kind of squirled most of his net worth into an IRA. An IRA is, like, normally a thing for, like, yes. Yeah, like middle class people to, like, you know, put away. pay a couple hundred thousand bucks to like, um, uh, you know, like, retire.

I mean, we did a whole episode about this actually, because ProPublica did a big story on it because I, I mean, I have a Roth IRA and I was limited to putting, while I was putting money into it, 5K a year. That's all you could put in. And so it never actually for the average person grows that large, um, I did it for a couple years. It's got like 20 grand in it or whatever, right? But he used some mechanism.

And part of the reason it's limited is, because the proceeds are all tax-free at the end. He used some mechanism to make his worth millions and millions of dollars, this vehicle that was a 10th of average people. Tens of millions, I think, or maybe even more now. Yeah, he managed to put shares of PayPal, and I can't remember. The mechanics, it's been a while since I looked at this, and I spent a lot of time with it.

But essentially, he put shares in private companies in the IRA, which, like, you can technically do, but there are lots of reasons why doing so could be a violation of the tax code because it's like, and this gets really complicated, but, like, how do you say how much that is worth? And so, you know, it's, anyway, basically, like, he's on the very edge of what is, like, acceptable

from a tax policy point of view. And so there had been this fear for years that, like, some president, like, this stuff is allowed, this stuff hasn't gotten the IRS, mad today, but like some president in the future could essentially cause the IRS to, like, audit him or change the tax policy and cause him to pay taxes on this, like, gigantic nest egg. And so, like, it's, there's, there's some things like that as well where, like, his, you know, you don't, you don't generally want to make an enemy of the president of the United States.

And then the other, the other thing I'll say is, like, you know, Trump is, and I think Teal has been really smart about this, and some of Trump's other allies, like, have not understood this, most notably Musk. Like, if you get into bed with Trump, like, he's a very savvy negotiator and he's the president, and it's going to be very hard to get the better of that interaction. Like, we've seen, like, one after another kind of, like, moderate guy attempt to, like, sort of, like, profit from or contain or whatever. And often, like, it doesn't go well, because, because, like, Trump will find a way to use it to his advantage and essentially leave that person, you know, like, with a shattered career or, like, now known, like, I don't know,

maybe Musk will be able to recover from this, but, like, he is now associated with, like, the most unpopular part of a really unpopular presidency. He's a guy who's, like, if you're waiting on hold with a Social Security office for eight hours, like, there's one, you're not going to blame Trump, maybe. You're going to blame, like, this guy, Elon Musk, who went around, like, like, with a chainsaw and bragging about, like, all the people he was firing. Like, and, and, and so, I think, like, teal being this, like, savvy behind the scenes guy has figured out a way to kind of associate with the Trump movement without, well, like,

minimizing the blowback from that association. And, like, this, this was, like, a big factor, like, in the period when Biden was president. Um, now, like, all of Trump's old friends are, like, you know, back in power. So, so we'll see. But, like, there's, there's a. risk of, like, getting too closely associated with someone who is as polarizing as Trump, even if you are, like, a member of the far right or whatever. I see.

In the way in which Musk torched so many of his own businesses by doing it so publicly and making himself a magnet, T.L. is just a little under the surface and not as public a person and doesn't quite attract the same amount of heat. However, you know, these company names have become famous as these sort of, like, behind the scenes, boogey men. Folks, the countdown is on. Holiday shopping season is officially here.

But Uncommon Goods takes the stress out of gifting with thousands of unique, high-quality fines you won't see anywhere else. Don't wait. The most meaningful gifts get scooped up fast and now is the perfect time to cross names off your list. Uncommon Goods looks for products

that are high-quality, unique, and often handmade or made in the U.S. Many are crafted by independent artists and small businesses, making every gift feel meaningful and truly one of a kind. When you shop at Uncommon Goods, you're supporting artists and small independent businesses. Many of their handcrafted products are made in small batches, so shop now before they sell out this holiday season. You know, I've discovered amazing gifts for friends and relatives that I wouldn't have found anywhere else. You know, I got one friend who's really into pinball, and I found a beautiful custom DIY kit to help them build a personal tabletop pinball machine. And for another friend who loves national parks, I found some retro-style smoky bear merchandise.

This is stuff that is really going to surprise and delight them unless they're listening now and realize that I'm talking about them. So, uh, sorry, guys. Look, I also like that with every purchase you make it uncommon goods, they give back $1 to a nonprofit partner of your choice. And so far, they've donated more than $3.1 million. So don't wait. Cross those names off your list before the rush to get $1,000. 15% off your next gift. Go to uncommon goods.com slash factually. That's uncommon goods.com slash factually for 15% off uncommon goods. We're all out of the ordinary. You know, owning a home can be

amazing until it's not. One minute you're sipping coffee. The next, your ankle deep in water from a burst pipe. Repairs don't care about timing and they definitely don't care about your budget. And regular homeowners insurance doesn't cover a lot of the day-to-day wear and tear. You got plumbing failures, HVAC breakdowns, electrical issues, and you are often on your own for those. Well, that is where homesurf comes in for as little as $4.99 a month, they've got your back. So think of it this way. Either you could be searching for a contractor when something goes wrong in a panic, or when something goes wrong, you could already be on the phone with homeserv's 24-7 hotline scheduling a repair. They've helped homeowners like you for over 20 years

with a trusted national network of 2,600 local contractors. You know, I'm lucky enough. I'm lucky enough. to own a home and I can't tell you how many times I would have loved to have had something like homeserve on my side. One burst pipe or bad water here to experience can totally change your perspective as anyone who owns a home knows. So help protect your home systems and your wallet with homeserve against covered repairs. Plans start at just $4.99 a month. Go to homeserve.com to find the plan that's right for you. That's homeserve.com, not available everywhere. Most plans range between $4.99 and $11.99 a month your first year. Terms apply on covered repairs. you mentioned Palantir um what what the fuck is Palantir exactly like what are they what actual

service do they sell that's a good question does anybody know what they are a data they're like a data management company they're a company that helps you like make sense of your data whether that data is um having to do with like troop movements or something that's that was there um that was the beginning of the company as a or whether it has to do with like national security you're trying to track like criminal cartels or something or you're just trying to um track you know like how much um how many like cars are in your factory or something like they they do a pretty good business uh with companies it's it's like it's like a data it's like database software and they and claim that, you know, the database software has some, like, AI swirled in. So, like, the

AI will tell you, like, where the bad guys are. If you're, um, if you're, like, in the military or police, the, or it'll tell you, like, where, which, which stores are most likely to run out of cars. It's, it's actually, like, weirdly, there are lots of soft, there's lots of software like this, but Palantir has kind of adopted, like, very different branding. Like, most companies, like, don't like to be compared to big brother. Palantir, like, goes out of its way to be like, yeah, we're big brother and it's great. Like, that's kind of like their branding. And that's, like, part of the reason why it's become this kind of, just like boogeyman for people.

And both in this country and also, like, overseas, like, in the UK where they have a big contract to, to manage the NHS, the National Health Service. Like, lots of people in the UK are, like, really mad about this. They see this, like, shadowy Silicon Valley tech company, like, potentially messing up this thing that they really care about, the National Health Service. Now, I'll say also, so, like, some of this is just, like, their branding. Like, Teal is really good at making people think that he's, like, really powerful. And Palantir acts, like, their software can, like, you know, will, like, do anything or whatever. But there are real, there are real concerns. They're like reasons to be afraid of data management software and especially data management software if the company is either presenting itself as one that's like willing to go over the line or if it's associated with a philosophy that's all about breaking the rules.

You know, like I'll just, just to put this in like super simple and obvious terms and most people probably know this, but like if you like somebody doesn't necessarily have to be like listening to every phone call that I. I'm having to know a lot about me. They could just look at, they can look at my purchase history, they can look at my movements, they can look at, they can like use a lot of, use all this data and essentially paint a picture that then would violate my privacy. And like that is the, that is the concern with Palantir. And it's, you know, with, and frankly, like with any of these Silicon Valley companies that have elements of surveillance or surveillance capitalism, it's true about Facebook too.

if you like take all of someone's data you can you you will know things about them that they don't want you to know the government will have information and not only will the government have that information but if that that information could then fall into somebody else's hands

whether that's information about your sexuality or who you're dating or you know or how many or you're whether you're pregnant whether you've had cancer like stuff that like actually that that is either would be dangerous if people knew about it or it could be financially harmful or whatever. So like these

there are like real they're like real concerns about data mining and that's and that's what Palantir is doing. It's data mining. They're doing so they're doing like deep data mining of whatever database you give them I assume if you contract with them

but they are willing to do things that like other firms might not do um yeah and at least in the past like that's what my reporting on, you know, when I was reporting this book, talked to many people who work there or familiar with it,

users and so on. And yeah, like, that's the long track record. It's also kind of how the company presents itself. Well, I mean, look at the name of the company. I mean, the company, talk about these fucking college dorks. It's named the palanteer, it's named after the Palantir from J.R.

Tokens, the Lord of the Rings, which as you might remember from the film and the books, it is a sphere. that I believe Pippin touches and the character, or is it Mary? Which one is it Mary or Pippin? It's how, I can't remember whether it's Pippin or Mary, but. It's Pippin.

It's Pippin. I remember the books. It's Pippin. But it's Sor, I mean, it's like Soron's way of seeing the world. Sauron, the Dark Lord, created the Palantir in the books. When you touch it, you can see things that are far away. It gives you, you know, supernatural knowledge. But when you use it, it comes at a price.

because Sauron can see you and it also kind of drives you mad, right? You are seen by the creator of it, which is like, so it's an evil thing. Like the Palantir is evil and you're not supposed to use it. It's bad. And so the fact that they are presenting it that way, I mean, I don't think it's like, oh, they didn't realize it was bad. I think it's part of the branding, right? It's like, no, no, we're giving you the thing you should not have.

That is 100% right. And, like, it's so important because all the time I see, first of all, they're doing this on purpose. Alex Karp, the CEO, will talk about their technology in just this while. It'll be like, our technology can be used to kill people. It has to keep it very safe. Like, it's like this way, it's like saying, like, we have this scary thing. And a lot of the times I see people who are, who are like activists or who oppose Palantir or oppose surveillance capitalism or whatever. they sometimes, like, buy into this, into this, and they don't realize, like, it's branding.

They think if they, like, if they say, like, Peter Thiel is building, like, a modern-day big brother or, or whatever, like, you think you're criticizing him, but what you're really doing is just marketing, because the people who buy his technology do not care. They're not like, oh, I don't want to buy, like, you think, like, the CIA is like, I don't want to buy the, I don't want to buy the, I don't want to buy Sorons or that sounds evil. They'd be like, yeah, definitely, give me Sorons Orb. Like, Bank of America is not going to be, I don't want Sorons or, like, they want Soronsorb. Everyone does. It's like, it's like brilliant branding. Yeah, there's this, there's this misunderstanding that people have where there's the famous tweet about the sci-fi author who writes a book called Do Not Build the Torment Nexus.

And then a tech guy reads it and goes, oh, I'll build the torment nexus. But the premise of that tweet is that the tech guy didn't realize, oh, oh, they didn't actually get the lesson. you're not supposed to build the thing. No, the tech guy read the book and said, yeah, well, I don't want to be in the torment nexus, but I'd love to be the guy who runs the torment nexus. Like, they read it and they go good.

Some people read 1984 and says, sure sounds good to be big brother. What if I become big brother, then I wouldn't have any complaints. So this comes up a lot with AI, right? Like you see these AI companies. It's like really popular among the guys selling AI to talk about how their software,

might end the world. And, you know, Sam Altman, the founder of Open AI is always like, is constantly like comparing it to the nuclear bomb and like suggesting that like somehow Elon Musk does this all the time too. Like somehow like this large language model is going to like destroy human civilization. Like there are a lot of people who believe that. And then I think there are a bunch of people who use it for marketing because like it's a lot easier to market a product if you're like, you're like, this could be all powerful. It might be the most powerful thing the universe has ever seen, and it kind of distracts people from the ways in which this stuff just doesn't work. Like, you know, like, it's hard to, like, if you're, if you're constantly

worrying about the robots that are going to, like, take over the world, you may not notice that big companies are, are putting these robots that, like, don't work and using them to, to, like, to, like, replace humans and, and, and, like, causing people to lose jobs and causing, like, are Google search results to suffer and unlike our world to be like a shittier place. You just summarize the argument I've been making for the last two years on this podcast much more succinctly than I ever have. So thank you. That's exactly, that's exactly my position that like, oh, I'm supposed to, the idea that, oh, AI is going to destroy the world is a faint to distract me from the fact that, you know,

I literally had a friend fired from their job to be replaced with a shitty-ass chatbot. Yeah. Yeah. And Palantir was like the first company to do this. Like they were taught they were like comparing themselves to Big Brother in like 2008, 2009, like trying to basically the same, the same kind of strategy. And I'm not saying it. I'm not saying there aren't things to be scared of. And it's same thing with AI. There are things to worry about.

They're just often not the they're not like the things that the companies are are talking about. So I think this is again part of mask off culture because the guy is just saying, hey, I'm, I'm big brother. I'm making an evil product and I'm marketing it to evil people. And if you're evil, sign up and give me some money. Like, I mean, it kind of boils down to that to a certain extent, doesn't it? Yeah, I think it's, I mean, on some level, like, as a journalist and like, you know, journalists, we can be like, I don't know, like sociopathic or something sometimes because like, you know, you want a good story and like it's and like when people are entertaining, it's like you want to write about them. But, like, to me, there's something almost refreshing about someone like Teal who, like, most of these, like, most, most CEOs, like, do go to such lengths to, like, pretend to be, like, like, good guys.

And it's something refreshing about somebody who just plays the heel. And, like, you know, he's a professional wrestling fan. Like, he loves to talk about, like, you know, like. Is that why he helped Hulk Hogan? I think he may be a professional wrestling fan because. because he helped Hogan. I don't know, but, like, you know, he's dressed up as, as Hogan at parties. Like, he, and he's caught, like, he talks about K-Fabe all the time.

And, like, you know, right now, he's giving this lecture, um, on the- word, he's, he's an Ayn Rand fan and a wrestling fan. This is so embarrassed, like an adult wrestling fan. Oh, it's so embarrassing, man. And to think that he, he, like, saw the whole Kogan sex tape and he was like, I'm in now I'm in. Let me see this guy's past work. Like,

oh, what a fucking dork. So move on. So, yeah, he's giving a, he's given a lecture right now about the Antichrist.

It's like a four-part lecture series where Peter Thiel, he, he presents himself as an intellectual. He's, and the talks are off the record.

There are these huge lines in front of the, I think it's the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. And a lot of people have been like cracking jokes about this. Like there was a Joe Rogan

clip going around like a week ago where Tim Dillon and Joe Rogan are saying like I don't think he knows what he's doing like he because because like he's the most antichristy guy in the world like giving an lecture on the antichrist just seems like to invite like a joke and it's like yeah that's the point he's like he's playing the heel he's doing what he's like always done which is like you know try to be a little edgy and and also you know it's it puts him in this position as this like provocateur this like genius this puppet master and again like not anywhere near, like, a lot of the stuff that's happening in Washington that, you know, is probably not great to be associated with.

He is a Christian, right? He, speaking of the Antichrist, does that play a role in his ideology and actions? He's a Christian, although, man, his Christianity is unconventional. Like, I cannot wait to find out how. I mean, no, well, you know, he's just... It almost seems like he's interested in Christianity, like, from an intellectual standpoint. His parents were evangelical. I think he, I think he, like, saw his Christianity and his background.

Again, getting back to that sense of, like, of being, like, a victim or something in this world. You know, there's so much grievance on the right. And Teal's been a part of that, like, the sense that, like, the world is against conservatives and Christians and white guys. And so I think it plays a role there. but also also now like for for him and for a lot of people on the on the on the on the on the right in tech it's just like a way it's like another club to be in that allows them to like stick it to the left or something um i don't know like you can uh teals like done these like lectures about theology and stuff i mean he seems to be skeptical of the of like the idea of um i mean of like many ideas of um i mean of like many ideas including like God's love and and things that like Christians that like like most Christians seem to um yeah like there's a there's a lengthy there's a Ross I don't I never know how to say his name but there's a doubt doubt doubt that there's a long exchange with Rouse Ross Ross I'm forgetting

his name Ross doubt it over over like Christianity and by the end of it Ross just seems like you know befuddle because like he you know because like teal's understanding of christianity is like just so far away from like what a normie christian's idea of of god and jesus and so on is i mean his these antichrist lectures like the whole point of them basically is that um bretta thernberg you know the diminutive swedish environmental activists that she is the antichrist or like that or that someone like her is the antichrist. Imagine you're like, you're like waiting in this long line in San Francisco.

Oh, I can't wait to get into the Peter Thiel lecture. Find out who the antichristies. You're like, wait in the five hours later. Like Greta Thunberg. You're like, what? What a, what a, I hate to spoil it for people. But, you know, it's, and I don't know, there's, he's only done one lecture. And just to be clear, I have not seen it.

I don't know what's in it for sure. Oh, I'm sure he's so. scared of Greta Toonberg, the autistic child from Sweden who refuses to fly in planes. But he's scared of her because she is somebody who's saying, like, you know, hey, like, businesses need to be reigned in. And she's talking about it in terms of, like, climate change and so on. But I think, like, in a weird way, like, I think he's right. Like, I think she is actually sort of dangerous to his worldview. And to, like, the worldview of some people who, like, think that, like, you know, that, like, ultra-libertarianism is, is, is the key that, like, so, so, so, I mean, it's, it's hilarious because, again, she's, like, I don't know, four foot 11 or something.

I've never met her in person, but she's not, she's not a large woman. And, like, again, like you said, like, her main, her main seems to be, like, not, yeah, like, not flying in planes. So, anyway. And the peak of her fame was, like, five or six years ago, like, it's, and God bless Greta, you know, but, but, yeah. Like, okay, it's just, uh, yeah, sorry, go on, please. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's it. It's, it's people who are trying to rein in technology companies, either because

they're going to say that you need to, we need to have a carbon tax or we need to find some way to discourage, you know, tech companies from, or not tech companies, like all companies from polluting so much or like there are other, there are other versions of this. There are efforts underway now to regulate, you know, tech companies access to, to data or access to children's data or or like AI's use in hiring decisions or things like that. So it's like it's like the risk that that we that we like democracy that like the voters would get together and like make some rules that would, you know, rein him in. But so if his fear of the Antichrist is that he would be reigned in, that would make him the

Christ. Like, in this analysis that, like, the worst thing that could happen would be for his progress to be slowed down, which means he really, it sounds like he believes pretty deeply in his own messianic destiny in some way. And, oh, we haven't even talked about sea steading yet. And, like, that kind of thing. Like, this guy is, he really believes some out there shit, right? Yeah, yeah. So, seesteading, this is the idea, it's like a homestead, but it's on the water. But it's the idea that, like, you would have, you would have these, like, floating islands with no rules at all. And that this, his idea was that this would be a way to be able to do, essentially things that you wouldn't be allowed to do in a country. For instance, types of scientific research.

So, like, there are, you know, there are all these laws, you know, around experimenting on humans or, or, like, I mean, I don't quite know what he's imagining. as well as, like, experimentation with, like, medicines and stuff. He's really interested in the idea that, like, people should be able to, like, you know, like, we shouldn't need an FDA. You should just, like, do your own research, I guess, like, for all drugs. And he just wants to create, what, the island of Dr. Moreau? Like, he just wants an island of the middle of the ocean so he can start, like, sowing pigs to children's backs or whatever and, like, giving them experimental drugs he comes up with.

I don't know anything about the pigs on the. the children's backs, but there is this whole, he does have this whole interest. I really like how you disavow my jokes. You're like, well, I cannot actually speak to the pigs on the backs, but it's not in my reporting. However, I will say, I'm just, I'm just giving you a hard time. Please continue. No, no, no. Well, he does have a thing about paribiosis.

And what paribiosis is, is essentially sewing an old mouse to a young mouse. Okay. And the idea, there have been some weird, some kind of weird, cookie, like Island of Dr. Moro type experiments around. essentially transfusing blood from a young person to an old person or a young mouse to an old mouse and there's like a tiny bit of science until you know I think he

no one really knows like how far he went he he he has said that he was interested in the research but he like never he's I think he said he's he's what he said is he's not a vampire I don't know what that means I'm sorry he has said he's not a vampire joking you know but but so I In answer to what question, what exactly was he trying to dispel?

What's the context in which one says, I'm not a vampire? The question of whether, if you've seen Silicon Valley, I don't know if you've seen the Blood Boy episode of Silicon Valley, but the idea that he, there were, you know, there have been reports of Silicon Valley guys. And there actually is one guy now, Brian. Right, Thompson, I think. I forget his last name.

Johnson. Yeah, he's like, who's like doing this. Who's got, I think he's been transfusing his sons. Like, he is a young, younger son. And he keeps getting articles written about him because he looks so weird in the photos. Like every magazine is like, let's take more photos of this guy. He looks like such a freak that it's, and, you know, he's got a, he's got the penis of an 18 year old. Yeah, that's this famous dude, yes.

Anyway, Teal has kind of like put money into all sorts of weird, either science stuff or political stuff, including seesteading and including some research into this thing called paribiosis, which is the sewing the two mice together. Right. Uh, and, and so his interest in C-steading is, like, he wants a zone free of regulation where he, he wants to create his own techno-fascist company, a country, excuse me, wants to create a country. I think, I think it's like wanting to have no rules apply to you. So to, yeah, to be able to do whatever you want. Um, and, and. To create a state. Like, he wants to be the state. There's some. So he's, I don't know that he's explicitly said that, but certainly. his followers have said like that very thing. Like there's this idea of the network state and and like that we're going to essentially you and he's definitely a fan and has promoted all sorts of like kind of essays and philosophy around basically around like what you're saying. Like kind of

creating a like techno libertarian state outside of the United States. It's kind of weird given that he started a major defense contractor. And like it's kind of surprising like so much of this stuff could undermine the U.S. government. And you might think that the U.S. government at some point would say, like, do we really want to, like, buy software from somebody who's, like, philosophy, you know, is, you know, is that we should, like, have a currency that allows, you know, that makes it harder for the, for the U.S. to regulate money laundering or that, you know, whatever. Any of the, all this stuff sometimes, like, starts to feel like it's against the interest of U.S. policymakers. But I don't know. Everyone's just sort of gone.

along with it so far. Well, the U.S., the top U.S. policymakers are now people who he got elected. So, like, I don't think they'd have a problem with that, not currently. But he's also specifically spoken out against democracy as a form of government, has he not? Yeah, yeah. I was kind of hinting at that before, but yes, he's, he, yeah, I mean, he's, he's basically said that he doesn't believe in democracy. And there's a super famous essay that he wrote called The Education of a Libertarian. And it's about how he used to be a libertarian, but he no longer is. And his complaint is essentially that, like, people are going to rein you in, that you can't have a democracy because, like, all the stuff you do. And the most controversial thing in this is he essentially

says that giving women the right to vote made libertarianism impossible. Now he walked some of this stuff back. Well, because libertarians are always men. Everyone knows that. No, sorry, that's a joke.

Please continue. No, yeah, no, I mean, but that, like, that, you know, and so it kind of boils down to this thing where, like, you can't trust the masses or something. You can't trust, yeah, you can't trust normal people to to decide what they want. And, and like that is, I mean, like, there are versions of this that are more mild

and that maybe are, like, we don't live in a direct democracy. We live in a republic. As, as you know, like, you know, the Senate is not really democratic. Wyoming. So, like, there are ways in which, you know, people, like, everyone makes compromises around democracy. But yeah, Teal has definitely gone much further where he is. He doesn't believe that

that people should have self-governance. like pretty plain and simple. No. And when you look at some of the, like, some of the people in his orbit, like they go to some pretty radical places. Like there's this guy Curtis Jarvin who's like closely connected to Teal and who, you know, Vance is friends with, you know, who talks about the need for an American Caesar, you know, like explicitly talking about the need for a dictator, a benevolent dictator. And Teal in his own way has talked about that. he's talked about how the best companies are run by CEOs and like you you know you need a CEO like and that and that and that kind of comes up in some of these like um and some of the new right

ideology where like their ideal ruler would be like the kind of guy who runs a tech company which is kind of funny because it's like basically it's like you said about about Christ a minute ago it's like yeah it's just Peter Thiel we just put Peter Thiel in charge or Elon Musk or somebody like him yeah I mean this is when at the very beginning of this episode I said that Peter Thiel is a techno-fascist, and this is why that's not an exaggeration. I mean, it's literally the case as he believes that people who run technology companies should rule the rest of us and that the rest of us should not, in fact, have self-governance. He wants to create his own nation, which would be a new kind of state, but it seems like

in the meantime, while he works on his island building technology, he is trying to reform or transformed the United States government to be no longer democratic, no longer people self-governing themselves, but to be run by people like him. I mean, it's, I'm not a guy who talks about the founding fathers, you know, with a huge amount of reverence because they were just people. I think he probably agrees. I think he probably feels he knows better than them and wants to found a re-found America on a new set of principles among which are not democracy where people like Kim get to call the shots. And he's currently probably the most powerful billionaire behind the people currently running

our government. Is any of that sound off base to you? Because it sounds pretty dark to me. I feel like I have to say, I mean, I think, I feel like I have to say that c-steading has gone out of style. And like, there's no, there are no c-steads. And the reason there are no c-steads, I mean, there are a couple of reasons. I think they tried one.

I kind of didn't work. But, but, like, one of the reasons is because they've actually been able to achieve many of these things in the United States. You know, like, you don't need a C-stead. I mean, you know, between, like, crypto and, like, and the way that, you know, members of this kind of ideological persuasion have taken over parts of government. Like, I'm not sure that there's much demand for C-steads.

The actual C-steading movement has kind of transitioned into, I forget what they're called, but essentially trying to do a C-stead, like, in some third-world country where, like, you would convince the government that like to just let us have a little piece of the country where we like where there are no rules um there there's one of these in i think it's in honduras but um but uh but in any case like the movement has completely lost steam because they don't need the movement anymore like the mood like they've they've taken over to some extent um and so so like these kind of like like wacky you know ideas are almost like not totally necessary

So, man, you know, I really appreciate you being on this show because I can hear as you talk, you're really trying hard as a reporter to be fair and to be unbiased as a bad word is the wrong word. But, you know, to be sort of even and not, you know, I'm a little bit of a polemicist. I'm a comedian. You're trying to stick to the facts here. You're a mainstream reporter. You're covering him as an interesting subject. You're not really coming at it from a political vantage point or to warn us. You're just reporting what this guy is up to.

And what you're reporting is that he does not believe in democracy. He does not believe in self-governance, the self-governance of the people. He wants America to be ruled by a techno dictator. And he is embedded at the highest levels of our government is the right-hand man to the people currently running the country um and is also the most sort of canny and crafty of all these billionaires who are who are currently uh uh exerting themselves this way um and that's just what's fucking happening like that that's not that's not like an argument oh you know hey here's the way to look at it that's just like these are the facts on the ground of yeah dude that's what i'm saying

Jesus fucking Christ, Max, why are you Why are you losing your mind? But why are you not screaming from the rooftops about the You're not doing anything wrong, but I'm like, what the fuck? What the fuck is happening in this country? I appreciate that you recognize my, you know, even hand in this. And I really, I really did like in the book. And I have tried to appreciate like Teal and,

and to take him on his own terms and give credit we're due and talk to people like, you know, have had many, many conversations with people who really admire him and care about him and so on. But I think that like taking a clear-eyed view at these tech oligarchs is like the first step. Like if you're upset by what's happening like in the United States or people who are upset about specific things,

like whether it's like, you know, tech companies, and kids or anything. I just think, like, taking that, like, taking that clear eye view is actually as a good step and it's empowering. And, like, and I feel, like, I know that many people have, like, given up on democracy and stuff, but, like, I haven't given up on democracy. And that's, like, why I'm not, like, you ask me why I'm not panicking or whatever. It's because, because I think that people, yeah, I mean, I think that there's a reason

teal regards democracy as a threat to some of his projects and it's because democracy is like powerful and it's still powerful you know no matter what Trump says about like Jimmy Kimmel or or anything else like it's it's like it and

and I maybe just maybe I'm saying that because it's a nice thing to believe but I feel like but but in the position that I'm in like it's kind of like the only thing I believe and it's the only reason to like keep doing, you know, like what I'm doing. Yeah, so I really appreciate that. Maybe it does make sense that he considers Greta Toonberg the Antichrist because Greta

Toonberg is, you know, a symbol. She is the antichrist. She's a small, you know, she's a small person. She's just one person with a voice, mobilizing lots of people. And so he's still afraid of the sleeping giant of the people rising up and and snatching the crown off his head. I mean, you know more about him than almost anybody, I would have to say, I would guess. So being that he is in such a position of power, I want to end by asking you, like, does he have a weakness?

Like, how do we, how do we take him down? Is there a vent we can shoot a little bomb into, you know? Well, this, I don't know about that. But, I mean, he has, yeah, he has lots of weaknesses, like all these guys do. teal's weakness is that so the title of my book is a contrarian like it's kind of how he approaches the world it's how a lot of venture capitalists approach the world it's like hey if if the crowd thinks one thing i'm going to think the other and honestly like part of why like i gravitated like to the subject matter is like i think i mean i feel this impulse sometimes like but like contrarianism

by itself is just like it's it kind of gets close to nihilism and and so like if you if you don't have like strongly held beliefs, if you're just trying to like zig when everybody else zags, if you don't have like a kind of strong sort of foundation, like in terms of your intellectual beliefs or your moral beliefs or whatever, like that is dangerous. And it can lead you to a weird place. It can cause you to make mistakes that you wouldn't otherwise make. And like that is, you know, and I'm not saying like, you know, he has a moral foundation, but like he's also, he's also like somebody who really wants to be in this kind of like weird smart guy position of outthinking. And sometimes like that can get you into trouble.

So like he's he's made mistakes in business and, and, you know, they're all the, I mean, I'm like going to shift to Musk for a second, but like, you know, ego and like, these guys have big egos and, and they think they're really smart. And, you know, at the end of the day, they're just people. and that's, you know, that, that's, they're not as big as they see themselves. And they're, and they're not as big as we see them. They're, yeah, they're just, just like Greta. There we go.

And there's more of us than there are them if we can rouse ourselves. Max, I can't thank you enough for coming on on the show. It's been a really fantastic conversation. And, yeah, the name of the book is the contrarian. People can, of course, get a copy at our special bookshop, factuallypod.com slash books. Every book you buy there will support not just this show, but your local bookstore as well. And where can people find your work online if they want to follow what else you're up to? I am on Twitter at Chaffkin.

It's not what it's called, Max. I know. It's not what it's called. You said the name earlier. It's called what? It's called X.com. Thank you very much. I'm on Blue Sky at the same username.

And, you know, publishing at Bloomberg.com. I also have a podcast called Everybody's Business. It's every week. and I would love people check that out too. Check it out. Max Chaffkin. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Adam, thank you so much for having me. Well, thank you once again to Max Chafkin for coming on the show.

Of course, you want to pick up a copy of his book. Once again, factuallypod.com slash books. If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on Patreon. Five bucks a month, every episode ad free. 15 bucks a month. I'll read your name in the credits. This week I want to thank Oros Harmon, Dylan Roy, Jake, Callan. Hey, look, a distraction, Uber, Elder, and Avaro Egg,

Burger. If you'd like me to read your name or silly username at the end of the show, head to Patreon.com slash Adam Conover, and we'd love to have you. Of course, if you want to come see me on the road, head to adamconover.combe. I'd love to see you out there on the road. I'd like to thank my producer, Sam Norman and Tony Wilson, everybody here at HeadGum for making the show possible. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next time on Factually. What's going on? It's Lamarne Morris. And Hannah Simone.

And we host The Mess Around, a New Girl rewatch podcast now on Headgum. Now, here's the thing. Every single week, we chat about an episode of New Girl, and we really get into it. Like, we get up in there. We get up in there. You know, we reminisce about our times on set. We share behind the scenes tea. We react to rewatching episodes that we haven't seen in years.

We talk about how Jake Johnson is dog. That's not true. We talk about so many memories. we have of working with the biggest stars on the planet. I'm talking Prince, Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo. We're just two BFFs having a good old time, okay? Sometimes we even talk to other co-stars like Zoe Day Chanel, Jake Johnson, Max Greenfield, and Damon Wayne's Jr.

And your dad. We talk to your dad on this show as well. Make sure you subscribe to the mess around wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every single Tuesday.