Peter Thiel, as is his wont, caused a stir last week when he expressed doubts that a Republican could win the White House in 2028. In an interview in Berlin on the MD Meets podcast, the billionaire cofounder of Palantir said he was still a “Vance partisan,” but he cautioned that a debate over whether Marco Rubio or J.D. Vance would be the better nominee was less important than the threat of socialism. “If Democratic Socialists take over the Democratic party that’s a much bigger deal,” Thiel said. “That is the end of America.”
The PayPal godfather has already packed for the Pampas
Thiel, who is a friend of mine, foresees parallels between the dynamics of right-wing populism and left-wing socialism. Just as Trump unseated the Bush family establishment in the Republican party in 2016, so too Zohran Mamdani and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez might evict the Clinton-Obama center left in 2028. That seismic shift could bring into the mainstream the full panoply of the extreme left’s platform: packing the Supreme Court, wealth taxes, nationalizing industry and eliminating the Electoral College.
Thiel “is just abysmally pessimistic” about Republican chances in 2028, no matter who the candidate is, a friend close to the PayPal mafia don told me. “The best we can hope for is a divided government, while AI just does its thing.”
A good bellwether for a 2028 worst-case scenario will look at how Trump fares after the midterm elections in November, should the Republicans lose the House and possibly also the Senate. If a Democratic Congress goes beyond overriding vetoes and obstructing legislation, and instead intensifies its attack, subjecting Trump to impeachment hearings and endless testimonies before committees, then a Democratic Socialist government in 2028 will promise the same or worse for billionaires like Thiel, Elon Musk and others.
That would not be the first time Thiel has fallen within the left’s political crosshairs. In 2020, Charles Littlejohn, a consultant for the IRS, stole and leaked tax return data to two news outlets from many famous and powerful people, including Trump, Musk, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and Thiel. The illegal disclosures, for which Littlejohn is serving a minimum five-year sentence, confirmed what many in Silicon Valley had only heard legends about – namely, that Thiel has run the most tax-efficient accumulation of wealth in American history. By placing his early PayPal stock into a tax-protected retirement account when the stock was only worth pennies, Thiel has parlayed that initial contribution over the years into a tax-free sum now worth something in the billions. The average Roth IRA balance sits at about $106,000.
Democrats were apoplectic when they learned this in 2020 and attempted to target Thiel’s tax-free account during the debates around Biden’s Build Back Better Bill in 2021. Left-wing lawmakers pushed for sweeping regulations aimed at dismantling mega-sized IRAs like Thiel’s. One rule in the bill passed by the House would have forced Thiel to withdraw everything in the account until the balance reached $20 million. It didn’t name Thiel, but there were only two or three Americans to whom the brazen Roth raid would have applied. Thiel was clearly targeted. Build Back Better failed to pass in the Senate, but if the Democratic Socialists win in 2028, all wealth, not just mega-Roths, will become prey.
Partisan prosecution is also on the table. After his break from the Democratic party in 2021, Musk faced a barrage of lawsuits and investigations opened by Biden’s Justice Department. The Civil Rights Division sued SpaceX, alleging that it refused to hire asylum seekers and refugees, in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The FBI and Justice Department also sniffed around Tesla for evidence of fraud in the company’s claims about its self-driving capabilities. Musk’s Twitter purchase was also probed by the FTC for arcane violations. Now that Musk has gone all-in on supporting Trump, and derangement is only worse, there’s no telling how far Democratic Socialists may go to weaken Musk should they win. Nationalizing SpaceX or charging Musk in some kangaroo court for alleged crimes committed during DoGE cannot be ruled out after a blue wave in 2028.
Lawfare against opponents, cheerful confiscation, nationalizations, unlimited social spending, packed courts, sovereign debt defaults – these would indeed be the end of America. Hurry up, it’s time! The PayPal godfather has already packed for the Pampas. Earlier this year it was reported that Thiel purchased a $12 million home in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and that he had enrolled his children at local schools. At dinner with him this year, I said, “Peter, ‘German moves to Argentina’ not a good headline.” He laughed and shrugged.
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