Overview

• Audio and transcripts reviewed by The Washington Post and The Times detail Thiel’s four-part series, delivered in September and early October at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club for the Acts 17 Collective.
• Thiel labeled AI skeptics “legionnaires of the Antichrist” and cited Greta Thunberg and Eliezer Yudkowsky as examples, arguing that efforts to restrain technology pose a greater threat than potential downsides of innovation.
• He warned that global financial controls could enable an Antichrist-like system, pointing to tax treaties, surveillance, and sanctions architecture that he said erode financial privacy and create only an illusion of autonomy.
• Thiel criticized Bill Gates and the Giving Pledge while concluding Gates does not fit the Antichrist archetype, and he recounted a conversation with Elon Musk about quitting the pledge, a claim reported from Thiel’s account without independent corroboration.
• The reports place Thiel’s remarks in the context of his political and industry influence, including ties to the Trump administration and Palantir, as Silicon Valley figures resist AI regulation in Trump’s second term.