Peter Andreas Thiel ( ; born 11 October 1967) is a German-American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and conservative political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies and Founders Fund, he was also the first outside investor in Facebook. As of October 2026, Forbes estimated Thiel's net worth at US$37.7 billion. Born in Germany, Thiel moved to the US with his parents when he was an infant. In 1971, his family moved to South African-occupied Namibia, before moving back to the US in 1977. After graduating from Stanford University, Thiel worked as a clerk, a securities lawyer, a speechwriter, and a derivatives trader at Credit Suisse. He founded Thiel Capital Management in 1996 and co-founded PayPal with Max Levchin and Luke Nosek in 1998. He was PayPal's chief executive officer until its sale to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion. Thiel then founded Clarium Capital, a global macro hedge fund based in San Francisco. He launched Palantir in 2003, a big data analysis company, and has been its chairman since then. In August 2004, Thiel became Facebook's first outside investor by acquiring a 10.2% stake in the company for $500,000. In 2005, he launched Founders Fund with PayPal partners Ken Howery and Luke Nosek. He co-founded Valar Ventures in 2010, founded Thiel Capital in 2011, co-founded Mithril Capital in 2012, was investment committee chair in 2012, and was a part-time partner at Y Combinator from 2015 to 2017. He was granted New Zealand citizenship in 2011, which became controversial when made public in 2017. Through the Thiel Foundation, he governs the grant-making bodies Breakout Labs and Thiel Fellowship. Thiel has been variously portrayed as a conservative libertarian and democracy-skeptic authoritarian, and he has made substantial donations to American right-wing figures and causes. Commentators and scholars frequently examine his views, particularly his political and ideological positions. He has been described as "a political theologian operating at the heart of the Silicon Valley" and the "intellectual architect of Silicon Valley's contemporary ethos".