Tech Billionaire Peter Thiel: FBI informant
October 20th, 2023Via: Insider:
Peter Thiel has worn many hats over the years: Silicon Valley founder, Trump megadonor, cryptocurrency booster, democracy skeptic.
But there is yet another facet to Thiel, one that has remained secret until now: FBI informant.
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Johnson said that he told Thiel that by offering the FBI a window into his contacts with foreign governments, he could demonstrate his loyalty to the United States.
He described Thiel’s motivation for working with Buma as a kind of hedge in an environment where extravagant wealth no longer affords the safety it used to. He pointed to ProPublica’s reporting on Thiel’s income-tax avoidance and the death of Jeffrey Epstein, who had reportedly scheduled several meetings with Thiel.
“I told him to join up or get crushed,” Johnson said.
This is the same sort of thing I wonder about Trump — is he really owned by the bad guys?
I remember when Ivana was divorcing him and, in the course of separating out some of their money for her, it was discovered that he didn’t own nearly as much as everyone thought he did, because he had leveraged his properties against each other in such a devious way that all he really owned was a huge pile of debt, which nearly all his income went to pay the interest on. The properties had been used as collateral so many times at once that none were worth nearly what he owed on them to separate lenders. So the debt-holders decided not to foreclose, and instead (I suspect) made some deal in which he could go along seemingly rich and getting richer, but they would be secretly compensated somehow. When his Trump Towers were blown up, I thought this use of his bldgs for some nefarious govt purpose must be part of the deal. I noticed that he didn’t happen to be in his apt there when the bombs went off. Then, when he became president but was obviously only half-interested, I thought that must be another part of the deal. He did do some good things then, thereby pacifying a lot of people who were demanding a govt clean-up — but he didn’t actually clean up govt at all. And now he is running for pres with no attractive Dem running against him, as though he is about to be given the election. And he seems almost to be enjoying his role in all the lawsuits and criminal investigations and trial delays, as though there is no question of a comfortable outcome for him, as though he’s the star of a great distraction to keep the people he pacified before from rising up and doing anything effective now.
We haven’t had a media window into other billionaire’s lives like we have into Trump’s; he loves publicity, and they shun it. This business with Thiel makes me wonder how many others of them, for one reason or another, also sold their souls long ago and have made it possible, through their ownerships of most of the businesses we deal with, for the bad guys to get so far, so fast, with so little effective opposition.
Snowman: extremely well said. Trump, as a lighting rod, makes a lot of practical sense. A lighting rod exists for the sole purpose of protecting the exosting structure. It does this by shunting a massive amount of energy to ground.