Peter Thiel has been talking about the Devil a lot lately. Over the past few years, the eccentric tech billionaire has made it a habit of showing up at events sponsored by Christian organizations, where he has espoused a bizarre brand of New Age-y faith. The tech magnate’s preoccupation with God has only become more prominent as time has passed. During a recent appearance on the Hoover Institution’s podcast, Thiel went on at length about his views on Apocalypse, Armageddon, and, pivotally, the Antichrist, who he feels could usher in the end of the World.
This week, an interview with New York Times columnist Ross Douthat gave Thiel yet another opportunity to wax on about the Evil One, though the conversation ultimately did not go exactly the way the billionaire wanted it to. When questioned by Douthat about what sort of qualities the Antichrist might have, he gave a very odd answer. It was, in part:
…perhaps we should also talk about the risk of another type of a bad singularity, which I would describe as the one-world totalitarian state. Because I would say the default political solution people have for all these existential risks is one-world governance. What do you do about nuclear weapons? We have a United Nations with real teeth that controls them, and they’re controlled by an international political order. And then something like this is also: What do we do about A.I.? And we need global compute governance. We need a one-world government to control all the computers, log every single keystroke, to make sure people don’t program a dangerous A.I. And I’ve been wondering whether that’s going from the frying pan into the fire.
Thiel’s suggestion seems to be that, if political organizations attempt to regulate the kinds of technology that he is invested in, they may actually be doing the Devil’s work. These so-called religious views are obviously interesting for how closely they hew to the billionaire’s political and economic interests. In the Palantir founder’s eyes, Satan’s vicar on Earth will be a loud supporter of stuff like nuclear non-proliferation, international law, and the regulation of AI. Later in the conversation, Thiel also suggested that the Antichrist could very well be someone like Greta Thunberg—in other words, a prominent social activist who cares less about stuff like profit margins and stock value and more about climate change and dead Palestinians.
But is Thiel’s preoccupation with supernatural evil even real? Frankly, it’s unclear whether the billionaire is just a liar or a guy whose head is crammed so far up his ass that day looks like night and a peaceful global order unperturbed by nuclear war looks like the work of the Devil. If we start from the presumption that most people aspire to be the hero of their own story, and that Thiel is one of those people, and that he feels that his creepy technocratic endeavors are actually a force for good in the world instead of an obvious pox on humanity, then it would be safe to assume that he also feels that anything that gets in the way of those endeavors is decidedly not good—or, in his own words, the work of the “Antichrist.”
Anyway, later in Douthat and Thiel’s conversation, the subject turned, again, to the Antichrist, and Douthat, to his credit, stuck the billionaire’s feet to the fire somewhat. Douthat noted that, given Thiel’s own investments and activities, it could very well be that he, himself, was laying the groundwork for his professed enemy. Douthat asks:
You’re an investor in A.I. You’re deeply invested in Palantir, in military technology, in technologies of surveillance and technologies of warfare and so on. And it just seems to me that when you tell me a story about the Antichrist coming to power and using the fear of technological change to impose order on the world, I feel like that Antichrist would maybe be using the tools that you are building. Like, wouldn’t the Antichrist be like: Great, we’re not going to have any more technological progress, but I really like what Palantir has done so far. Isn’t that a concern? Wouldn’t that be the irony of history, that the man publicly worrying about the Antichrist accidentally hastens his or her arrival?
Thiel’s response was typical of his interviews: he stammered and sweated and looked like his face was going to fall off.
That awkward moment Peter Thiel realized he might be the very Antichrist he warned about
pic.twitter.com/D9JvGARDtD— Mykhaïlo Golub (@golub) June 27, 2025
After an uncomfortably long period of time that mixed silence, stammering, and sweat, Thiel responded: “Look, there are all these different scenarios. I obviously don’t think that that’s what I’m doing.”
Douthat assured the billionaire tycoon that he didn’t think that’s what was happening, but he was hoping to get a better picture of “how you get to a world willing to submit to permanent authoritarian rule.”
At that point, it’s possible that the Holy Spirit took the wheel as Thiel began to incoherently ramble about Thessalonians 5:3, the FDA, nuclear weapons regulations, Argentina, cultural stagnation, and historical predetermination. It’s all a bit much.
The internet subsequently had fun with the exchange, noting the possibility that Thiel, himself, might actually be a modern-day Damien. “That awkward moment Peter Thiel realized he might be the very Antichrist he warned about,” one user wrote. Another user, meanwhile, referred to the venture capitalist as “Satan.”
Though he may share more than a passing resemblance to the Dark Lord, it seems pretty clear that Thiel could never be a serious contender for that role. That’s because, unlike the honey-tongued underworld spawn that the Bible has long prophesied, Thiel is a complete verbal train wreck. Every interview with him—beset as they are by stammering and monotone intonations—is difficult to listen to. The Antichrist is supposed to be a compelling speaker, with the charm to cut across diverse constituencies. Entirely without rizz, Thiel obviously doesn’t fit the profile. Donald Trump, on the other hand…
Peter Thiel on Whether He’s Ushering in the Antichrist: Um, Uhh, Buh, Um Uhh, th th, Uhhhh
