PayPal Mafia veteran and billionaire contrarian Peter Thiel—best known for co-founding Palantir, the surveillance firm now moonlighting as a tool of the Trump administration’s deportation machine—has found a new side hustle: part-time Christian evangelist warning the world about the rise of the Antichrist.
Yes, you read that right. The man who built his fortune as a defense contractor and Silicon Valley kingmaker is now lecturing on eschatology. This week in San Francisco, Thiel debuted the first in a four-part lecture series devoted to unpacking the supposed threat of the Dark Lord. Organized by the ACTS 17 Collective (a nonprofit that tries to blend Silicon Valley innovation with old-fashioned proselytizing), the event was billed as an exploration of how Thiel’s Christian faith shapes his worldview. In practice, it played out like a bizarre mix of TED Talk, tent revival, and billionaire cosplay.
The details of Thiel’s talk remain secretive—attendees weren’t exactly live-tweeting revelations about Satan—but outside the venue, dozens of protesters were eager to provide their own commentary. Many dressed in ironic Satanist garb, carrying hand-painted banners that mocked both Thiel and his company. One banner read: “The End is Near, Palantir is the Path, Thiel Leads the Way.” Protesters leaned into the theatricality, with one young woman wearing an upside-down cross declaring she just wanted “a glimpse of the Antichrist himself.” Another, clutching a Satanic Bible, joked about wanting his autograph. A man hoisting a sign that read “Embrace Darkness, Hail Thiel” deadpanned: “He’s the one, he’s going to bring about the end!”
Not everyone was sarcastic. Some voiced genuine concern that Thiel isn’t simply eccentric but dangerous. One protester dismissed the lecture series as “Christian bullshit” and argued that Thiel’s endgame was raw political power, pointing to his close ties with J.D. Vance and the hard-right wing of American politics. Another warned of creeping authoritarianism, saying that elites like Thiel “think they’re above the rest of us” and are actively plotting to consolidate control.
The protest signs, meanwhile, were both cutting and creative. One depicted Thiel as Gollum from The Lord of the Rings, cradling the One Ring—a jab at his Tolkien obsession and lust for power. A local artist went further, painting Thiel as a literal devil perched on Donald Trump’s back, steering the former president like a mount.
Even inside the event, enthusiasm seemed muted. The San Francisco Standard reported that one man in line half-joked he was waiting for horns to sprout from Thiel’s head mid-lecture. Another attendee, an alum of the “anti-woke” University of Austin, admitted he was more curious than inspired, noting that Palantir builds AI systems that “decide who lives or dies on the battlefield”—a chillingly literal embodiment of the Antichrist imagery Thiel himself invokes.
And yet, despite the apocalyptic framing, Thiel’s actual message is anything but clear. In a recent interview with New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, he suggested that international law, nuclear disarmament, and the regulation of artificial intelligence could all be tools of the Devil. He even floated the possibility that Greta Thunberg—the teenage climate activist—might be an Antichrist figure.
If that sounds incoherent, that’s because it is. Thiel’s Antichrist lectures are less a coherent theology than a chaotic projection of his own politics. Regulation? Evil. Climate action? Suspicious. Democracy? Questionable. All filtered through a billionaire’s paranoia and an evangelical lens.
So what’s really happening here? Perhaps nothing more than Thiel indulging his love of spectacle, cloaking his political and corporate ambitions in apocalyptic language. Or maybe it’s a glimpse of how Silicon Valley’s ruling class plans to fuse technology, religion, and politics into a single, frightening vision of the future.
One thing is certain: if Peter Thiel is worried about the Antichrist, he might want to start by looking in the mirror.