Peter Thiel Is Still Hoping That Donald Trump Just Fades Away

At the end of 2016, Donald Trump and the venture capitalist Peter Thiel sat down to a meeting with a group of the most powerful figures in the tech industry. With Apple’s Tim Cook, Tesla’s Elon Musk, Google’s Larry Page and Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos looking on, the president-elect thanked Thiel for his early support. Trump then attempted a sort of handshake. Grabbing Thiel’s hand and lightly patting it, he raised it above the table in a gesture that seemed somewhere between tenderness and triumph.

Thiel’s time as a Trump adviser was short-lived, and Trump’s presidency ended in scandal, with Thiel and other early supporters trying to distance themselves from two impeachments and one failed insurrection. But seven years after Silicon Valley’s Trump Tower moment, the iconoclastic VC still seems trapped in that awkward embrace. For years, Thiel, like many of his peers, has tried to promote a “Trumpism beyond Trump”—welcoming the trolling populism of the former president while trying to keep the man himself at arm’s length.