A phone call between Trump and conservative tech billionaire Peter Thiel reportedly turned 'pretty contentious'
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
- Tech investor Peter Thiel had a heated phone call in recent months with Donald Trump, Puck reported.
- Thiel was a vocal Trump supporter and rallied voters at the Republican National Convention in 2016.
- Thiel's public support for Trump wavered in recent years, and apparently, Trump noticed.
Billionaire Peter Thiel has reportedly pulled back from the political spotlight as a Republican mega-donor, and apparently, former President Donald Trump had a few choice words for him about it.
Thiel, a conservative tech investor and billionaire best known for co-founding PayPal and investing early in Facebook, had a heated phone conversation earlier this year with former President Donald Trump, Puck's Theodore Schleifer recently reported.
The conversation started out fine but became "pretty contentious," Puck reported. Apparently, Trump was "fuming" because the former president had supported Thiel-backed candidates like J.D. Vance and Blake Masters in the 2022 midterm election and felt that Thiel had "screwed" him by not doing anything to thank him in the time since, according to the report.
In the past, Thiel — a libertarian who has said he doesn't view democracy and freedom as compatible — was a public Trump supporter and used his voice and his wallet to back Trump's 2016 presidential run. He spoke on Trump's behalf at the 2016 Republican National Convention, telling the audience he was "proud to be gay," and donated $1.25 million to Trump's campaign.
Thiel's public support of Trump reportedly wavered in 2020 when Thiel declined the opportunity to speak at the RNC and didn't donate to Trump's campaign. Thiel thought that Trump's political reign wouldn't survive re-election due to the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to The Wall Street Journal.
But he continued to play the part of mega-donor, supporting "hard-right" candidates who espoused conspiracy theories. Thiel even left Facebook's board of directors to give his full attention to supporting Republican candidates, including mentees J.D. Vance and Blake Masters.
A year later, however, Peter Thiel took a step back from politics and no longer planned to support candidates in 2024.
Apparently, the phone call between Trump and Thiel, which took place "a few months ago," according to Puck, was the first interaction the two had had in a while.
Neither Trump nor Thiel immediately responded to Insider's request for comment ahead of publication.
Now, Trump is apparently backing away from supporting Thiel's ally Blake Masters, who ran to represent Arizona in the US Senate during the 2022 midterm election. Masters is considering a run for Kyrsten Sinema's seat in 2024. However, Trump said he would rather endorse Kari Lake, who ran for Arizona governor in 2022 and is also considering a 2024 senate run, according to The New York Times.
from Business Insider https://ift.tt/9oWJmct
No comments