Is JD Vance Peter Thiel’s puppet? The answer is terrifying

KnowYourMeme editor and TikToker par excellence Aidan Walker has been doing the work for years now. In addition to keeping us apprised of all the meme news that’s fit to print and reviewing every last season of Skibidi Toilet, he’s also helping to break down the stakes of this election in a recent TikTok.

Discussing Trump’s VP pick JD Vance, Walker breaks down Vance’s relationship with the dark Prince of tech Peter Thiel in no uncertain terms.

“JD Vance is not the actual Vice Presidential nominee,” Walker explains in the video. “Peter Thiel is.”

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So what’s the link between Vance and Thiel, you’re asking? Precisely this: Thiel was not only Vance’s boss up until recently, he was also a huge donor to Vance’s Ohio Senate campaign in 2022. During that time, Thiel gave “the most amount of money that any single person has ever given to a US Senate campaign to JD Vance.”

Thiel’s donation of a cool $15 million in 2022 might not raise too many eyebrows considering he’s one of the wealthiest men in the country. But there are more than a few reasons why Thiel’s forays into politics could spell huge trouble for all of us.

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The PayPal and Palantier founder’s net worth is currently estimated at about 11.2 billion, which means his donor well could potentially never run dry.

“JD Vance is the tech crypto bro VC type candidate,” Walker explains, “and those are the people that the Republicans and Trump are trying to make overtures to.”

Why is that so scary? Because it’s a previously untapped space of support and funds. Walker explains that Trump coming out in support of cryptocurrency as well as gaining an endorsement from Elon Musk is part of a strategy that could appeal to the “libertarian space” of undecided voters who have heavy investments in tech futures.

So yes, we should be afraid. Tech libertarians have deep pockets and possibly scant morals, and while Vance might seem like an up-and-coming politician, his ties to the tech world, as Walker explains, speak volumes.

“Peter Thiel literally escorted Vance to meet Trump, and get picked as a VP,” one commenter wrote. “It’s a business transaction.”

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True—and since Trump has always used his business world acumen as part of the gimmick, getting in good with the dark forces of Silicon Valley feels quite strategic indeed.

But there’s a darker aspect to all of this, because of course there is. “Guys like Peter Thiel,” Walker speculates, “would know how to set up a surveillance state” which could “back up the autocratic Christian nationalist thing that seems to be the Republican goal.”

It’s just speculation, but it’s something we should still be concerned about during this election cycle. Trump can deny his ties to John McEntee and Project 2025 all he wants, but if he’s trying to buddy up to tech billionaires to access funds, those relationships could still end up serving that project’s end goal of instituting a kind of hellish anti-gay, anti-human rights panopticon.

“It’s the Dark Enlightenment,” one commenter explained. “A bunch of bigot edgelords built an ideology around the idea that power is the only thing that matters & the only way to prove you have power is through cruelty.”

And there you have the Trump philosophy in a nutshell.