Gay billionaire Peter Thiel draws cheers at GOP convention
CLEVELAND — Maverick Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel delivered a speech tonight that would have been unheard of at a Republican convention not too many years ago: He proclaimed himself “proud to be gay,” decried “fake culture wars” and called for an end to “stupid wars” in the Middle East.
“Instead of going to Mars, we have invaded the Middle East,” Thiel said to a packed auditorium. Then, after attacking Hillary Clinton for pushing for a military intervention in Libya, he added: “On this most important issue, Donald Trump is right. It’s time to end the era of stupid wars and rebuild our country.”
Thiel is by far the most prominent — and controversial — figure from Silicon Valley to be backing Trump. A co-founder of PayPal and a major early investor in Facebook (who now sits on the social media giant’s board), Thiel is a staunch libertarian. He has also garnered headlines in recent weeks when it was disclosed he had secretly financed ex-wrestler Hulk Hogan’s invasion of privacy lawsuit against Gawker Media — a case that he reportedly bankrolled because its website had outed him as gay.
Thiel avoided any reference to the lawsuit — which has forced Gawker into bankruptcy protection — in his speech at tonight’s convention. Instead, he recited evidence of what he said shows that America is in decline and its government broken: flat wages, skyrocketing college tuition and fighter jets that “can’t even fly in the rain.”
“We don’t accept such incompetence in Silicon Valley, and we must not accept it from our government,” said Thiel. And nobody is being honest about the country’s decline, he said, “except Donald Trump.”
Thiel’s reference to his homosexuality came in a rhetorical flourish that drew cheers from a crowd that only minutes earlier had also warmly received Jerry Falwell Jr., whose father was one of the founders of the religious right.
“I am proud to be gay,” he said. “I am proud to be a Republican. But most of all I am proud to be an American.”
If there was irony in those remarks before a party that has often been accused of intolerance, so too was Thiel’s reference to his origins: an immigrant from Germany who moved to Cleveland with his parents as a young child to live the American dream.
“Back when my parents came to America looking for that dream, they found it — right here in Cleveland,” he said. “They brought me here as a 1-year-old, and this is where I became an American.”
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