Chuck Darwin<p>The payoff from Thiel’s early gamble in Trump is a lesson that has not passed others by. </p><p>As with their other obsession, <a href="https://c.im/tags/crypto" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>crypto</span></a>, the best time to have invested in Trump was 2016, <br />and the second best time is today. </p><p>We already have a word for what we’re watching now: <br />it’s <a href="https://c.im/tags/oligarchy" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>oligarchy</span></a>. </p><p>And we’ve already seen how this plays out. </p><p>In Putin’s Russia, political and commercial interests are one and the same.</p><p>Thiel is betting <br />– again <br />– on the same phenomenon in America. </p><p>Betting that he will be first among a new breed of tech bro oligarchs <br />– a new super-class of <a href="https://c.im/tags/broligarchs" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>broligarchs</span></a>.</p><p>In Trump’s America, there will be hard choices for everyone, including the billionaires. -- <br />Though it may be less hard for them. </p><p>Vance has said he wants to <a href="https://c.im/tags/deregulate" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>deregulate</span></a> crypto and <br />unshackle AI. </p><p>He’s said he’d <a href="https://c.im/tags/dismantle" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>dismantle</span></a> Biden’s attempts to place safeguards around AI development.</p><p>And while he has it in for the <a href="https://c.im/tags/legacy" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>legacy</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/monopolies" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>monopolies</span></a> of Google and Facebook<br /> – the platforms that his ideological bedfellows in the “new right” see as part of the “censorship industrial complex” suffocating rightwing speech <br />– Silicon Valley is betting on a gloves-off, regulation-free, pro-business <a href="https://c.im/tags/goldrush" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>goldrush</span></a>.</p><p>Another Peter Thiel acolyte was on stage at the Republican National Convention last week, <br />electrifying the crowd: <br /><a href="https://c.im/tags/Hulk" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Hulk</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Hogan" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Hogan</span></a>. </p><p>Hogan is less well known as one of Thiel’s longterm bets, though in some ways he’s even more instructive than Vance. </p><p>In 2007, the online magazine <a href="https://c.im/tags/Gawker" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Gawker</span></a> outed Thiel and ran a series of unflattering articles about him. </p><p>It took him years, but he ultimately got his revenge, covertly funding Hulk Hogan to the tune of $10m to sue the publication for invasion of privacy and forcing it into <a href="https://c.im/tags/bankruptcy" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>bankruptcy</span></a>.</p><p>On stage at the RNC, the wrestler, a permatanned orange, ripped off his shirt for the man who increasingly looks like he’ll be America’s next president. </p><p>Or, if JD Vance, is correct, the man who will prove to be the <a href="https://c.im/tags/Caesar" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Caesar</span></a> he says America needs. </p><p>A man who he has already urged to fire the nation’s civil servants to<br />💥 “replace them with our people”, <br />to defy the courts and rule his own way. </p><p>Or, to put this in simple terms: <br />to foment a <a href="https://c.im/tags/coup" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>coup</span></a>.</p><p>Thiel knows what every investor knows. That a crisis is an opportunity. </p><p>And that if Trump succeeds in tearing up the federal administration, <br />there is not only billions to be made in the ensuing market <a href="https://c.im/tags/turmoil" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>turmoil</span></a> but that a new breed of oligarchs, <br />close to Caesar’s throne, will be the first to share the spoils.</p><p>And chief among them will be Thiel. </p><p>It’s not a stretch to see how <a href="https://c.im/tags/Palantir" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Palantir</span></a>, his data-mining company <br />– that under the Conservatives got its teeth into the NHS <br />– will profile and surveil and target Caesar’s enemies. </p><p>And Thiel’s track record in winning, in successfully betting on the longest of odds, on biding his time, is maybe the most chilling of all the factors in a fortnight that has started to feel like the start of a run on the bank.</p><p>Biden’s debate disaster, <br />Trump’s victorious assassination survival, <br />and now Silicon Valley’s ascension to the presidential ticket. </p><p>The broligarchs have made their move <br />– and the rest of us need to understand exactly what that means.</p><p> <a href="https://c.im/tags/tech" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>tech</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/elite" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>elite</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Sandberg" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Sandberg</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Page" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Page</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Bezos" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Bezos</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Peter" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Peter</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Thiel" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Thiel</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/tech" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>tech</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/bro" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>bro</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Vance" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Vance</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Elon" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Elon</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Musk" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Musk</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Marc" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Marc</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Andreessen" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Andreessen</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Ben" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Ben</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Horowitz" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Horowitz</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Winklevoss" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Winklevoss</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Chamath" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Chamath</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Palihapitiya" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Palihapitiya</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/David" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>David</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Sacks" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Sacks</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Palantir" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Palantir</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Vance" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Vance</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Mithril" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Mithril</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Capital" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Capital</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Narya" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Narya</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Capital" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Capital</span></a></p>