Is the Most Shocking #MeToo Scandal in Silicon Valley History About to Explode in Thielworld?

The horrifying rumors that just won't die...

For a while now I’ve been internally debating how to broach this topic given its nature. There’s no two ways about it; it’s lurid and horrifying and chilling, and it also happens to fall under the heading category of ‘Things I’ve Heard About’ and not ‘Things I Can Prove.’

Part of me wanted to ignore it in favor of other, more intellectual topics, and those topics are still the main focus of this Substack in general. However, I feel compelled to discuss this topic at least once. The thing about this particular rumor is just how frequently I have heard it over the years. Various iterations of the exact same story, but from very different people, with very different agendas, and at very different times. And it is striking to me how generally consistent it is.

Instead of discussing it myself, I’m merely going to post some screenshots of what other people have posted on this topic and simply note that what all these people are saying very much echoes what I and others have also heard for years. Make of that what you will.

To be extremely clear: these are not established ‘facts,’ and I have no intention of presenting them as such. These are simply examples of ‘what people are saying’ and nothing more at this point. If you are curious about the details or deeper meaning of any particular claim, you should reach out to the individuals who made them directly. At this stage I am left with more questions than answers, and, at this point, questions are all I can really offer my readers. But they are important questions, and ones that I believe are very much worth asking.

The first screenshot is from a post made by Tanner Greer, someone I and most others know as being an extremely intelligent and serious person. I admit, Greer’s tweet is the straw that broke the camel’s back on this stuff for me. Tanner is also someone who I know is in a position to have heard about these things from relevant parties directly as he is deep into this world and also doesn’t have a history of bullshitting. It should be noted that he deleted this post relatively soon after posting it without explanation:

And some more stories, this time from different accounts. Again, I will let them speak for themselves. You can draw your own conclusions:

Again, make of it what you will. It is interesting, I would note, just how much energy important Thiel world capos like Costin Alamariu expend attempting to justify such relationships, and in very straightforward and explicit terms. A very unusual thing to spend time attempting to justify to an audience of ostensibly straight young right-wing men, many of whom work in tech. I’m sure it’s probably nothing, though. Just another example of ‘guys being dudes’ etc.

At this point it would behoove us to take a short look at some relevant data points from Thiel’s recent past to provide a bit more ‘context.’ We will still be only left with questions, but they will be ones that are a lot more interesting, I think.

Thiel and the Strange Death of Jeff Thomas

Most people plugged into this stuff know about Thiel and Jeff Thomas, or at least the broader outlines of the story. Still, I think it’s worth it to go back over it in a bit more detail, especially with the benefit of hindsight, as it is a bit remarkable how strange the story is and how many questions about what happened that day still remain.

Thomas’s body was found on March 8, 2023, on the street beneath a 57-story tower in downtown Miami, where he lived. His cause of death was a fall, apparently from his own apartment’s balcony.

Thomas was a gay 35-year-old male model who had recently relocated to Miami from Los Angeles, where he had been in an extended and, at times, stormy sexual relationship with Thiel. He had also been talking to a reporter from the Intercept, Ryan Grim, about his relationship with Thiel for a yet-to-be published feature when he suddenly was found dead. It’s worth it to look back at just what Grim recounted of these conversations, as they present a rare and unfiltered look at Thiel’s personal life and also serve as a kind of final testament for Thomas himself.

Thomas expounded on his relationship with Thiel to Grim during their discussions, a situation he likened to being ‘kept’ in a ‘dollhouse.’

“It was stressful; he wanted me to get the nicest car and the nicest house. He wanted to kind of show his power, to kind of show that he had me in his dollhouse,” Thomas said. “It’s not like I was his boyfriend, really; I was just kind of his friend that was there for him when he needed, you know, whatever he needed,” he added.

“If I’m going to give up the relationships I have and give up my dreams right now, during Covid, or dating other guys or pursuing people, then I’m going to get a $300,000 car, and I’m going to get a $13 million home [on Franklin Avenue in Hollywood Hills]. So those are the things that I see fit for me to give up my freedom,” Thomas continued.

According to Grim’s sources, Thiel and Thomas were frequently seen together during this time period, including during a series of high-profile parties they would throw together.

What’s interesting is that, according to a source contacted by Grim, Thiel would, at least sometimes, directly recruit young men for them. Grim’s source, a grad student at the University of California, Los Angeles, showed him Facebook messages between him and Thiel in which Thiel attempted to recruit him for one such party.

“Hot guys at a pool sounds like pretty idyllic gay activity to me,” the student responded at one point in the conversation.

“Well, it doesn’t stay idyllic too long,” Thiel responded, suggestively.

I don’t want to dwell on Thomas’s death too long; this is not a Substack dedicated to true crime stories, after all. However, I do want to point out a few strange facts about it.

Perhaps the strangest of all is the simple fact that, as far as I have been able to ascertain, the investigation into his death, despite it now being almost two years later, appears to be ongoing, as no official findings were ever released aside from an extremely short initial police report obtained by the Miami New Times. In addition, the coroner’s report was also never released. Almost nothing has been reported about the investigation since the first few months after Thomas’s death. With the Thiel-aligned journalist Theodore Schleifer’s attempt at damage control¹ being the last to truly try and report on the story, in the process claiming that he had seen a document indicating the police had determined Thomas’s death was a suicide, but without expounding further or sharing it.

His actual cause of death—whether it was an unfortunate accident, a suicide, or something even darker—appears to be something that has divided his family and friends, at least according to statements they released in the immediate aftermath of his death.

Thomas’s agent refused to accept the suicide explanation, suggesting instead that his death may have been some kind of unfortunate accident, perhaps involving an attempt at taking a selfie over the side of his building’s balcony. A cousin also appeared to refuse to accept suicide as an explanation. In addition, friends contacted by Grim also appeared to cast doubt on the suicide story. Thomas’s brother, however, appeared to support the suicide theory, posting about Thomas’s alleged struggles with mental illness and addiction. Thomas’s stepfather declined to comment aside from stating that he knew “the whole story” and had “talked to Peter a lot.” What they discussed or if any compensation was provided to the stepfather or any other members of Thomas’s family remains unknown.

One thing that is known, however, is that Thiel was reportedly the last person to talk with Thomas, supposedly in a phone call a few hours before he fell to his death. What they discussed is unknown and, judging by the state of the investigation, is likely to remain that way.

Thiel’s Sensitive Young Men

The Jeff Thomas affair is certainly not Thiel’s first rodeo, especially when it comes to unusual relationships with men much younger than himself. In fact, he has gone out of his way to do so for years, something that has been noted by a number of different observers and not just in ‘social’ settings either. Thiel’s preference for surrounding himself with young men, and young men with a very particular ‘look,’ is well documented.

Here it’s once again useful for us to go back to Chafkin’s ‘Contrarian’ for some of the details on this. Two passages in particular stand out for us here.

The first, regarding Thiel’s social life in San Francisco:

In addition to the constant networking, Thiel was partying. These weren’t the desperate soirées filled with anxious aspiring entrepreneurs; they were ragers, with bartenders wearing “assless chaps,” and drugs and sex out in the open, according to two sources familiar with the affairs…He tended to show up with an entourage of attractive young men, before disappearing into some back room.

And the second involves Steve Bannon’s account of Thiel’s role in the transition for Trump’s first administration:

This was odd—though not nearly as odd as the entourage Thiel brought with him. Of course, it was common for executive committee members to show up with an aide or two; Thiel brought a half dozen. They were all young men, and all were disconcertingly attractive; “they looked like male models,” said Bannon. Bannon cleared out a dingy office on the fourteenth floor of Trump Tower that Stephen Miller, Peter Navarro, and Curt Ellis—Trump’s policy team—had been using and gave it to Thiel. A long table was installed, and the team of hunks set up laptops, Silicon Valley‒style. From November through January, they worked shoulder to shoulder, cranking out a list of possible appointees and working late into the evening, after most of the rest of the staff had gone home.

This is what we like to call ‘a pattern of behavior.’

This behavior also wasn’t limited to just his contacts in Silicon Valley; it appears Thiel also reached out to a number of other ‘sensitive young men’ when it came to his contacts with the early alt-right. For instance, in 2016 and 2017, Thiel met with a number of alt-right figures, all of them young men. At least one of these meetings occurred during a secretive dinner arranged by Jeff Giesea, who at the time was serving as Thiel’s unofficial ambassador and advisor to the nascent political movement.

The exoteric rationale for such meetings seems straightforward enough: Thiel has a curious mind and is always looking for new points of entry to power and/or influence. Especially angles that are being ignored by others and that he can get in on cheap and early, a method that has guided almost all of his investing decisions in the world of tech and business.

On the other hand, Thiel must be an extremely busy man with countless individuals competing for his time and attention, and yet he decided to go out of his way to meet with a bunch of young and, frankly, unimpressive young men involved in fringe politics. Why? Especially as he already had Giesea available to run things in D.C. for him already.

Additionally, if he was just interested in the ideas themselves, why not arrange a meeting with one of the actual ‘intellectual’ leaders of the movement, who would have been older men? What insight could these young men possibly provide to a keen intellect like Thiel’s?

Of course, we can only speculate as to the true answers to these questions. Perhaps Thiel was looking for something…altogether different from these arraignments. It is hard to say.

However, it wouldn’t necessarily be surprising if he was. The young men involved in the alt-right, especially the many working in the conservative movement, had many secrets, secrets they would go to significant lengths to conceal from others. This fact alone makes them, ironically, some of the most vulnerable people in Washington, D.C.

People who, given these compromising secrets, it would be quite easy to blackmail and manipulate into doing…almost anything.

Still, in spite of a surprising amount of evidence, ultimately we can only speculate as to what the real truth of all of this is.

The truth is this country has two distinct forms of justice: one for the very wealthy and one for everyone else, and Thiel exists very much within the former category.

Even if multiple victims suddenly came forward with some kind of irrefutable evidence that was able to convince a DA crazy enough to take on Thiel, his very expensive lawyers would lay complete siege to the case and begin the process of slowly picking it apart. In addition, immense pressure would be put on the accusers via Thiel’s massive network of influence; one way or another, they would be crushed. And if that somehow didn’t stop them, well, let’s just say that struggles with ‘mental health’ and ‘addiction’ are increasingly common these days and frequently result in inexplicable Jeff Thomasesque ‘tragedies.’

Think of it this way: Thiel’s business partner Jeffrey Epstein engaged in an insanely convoluted, reckless, and high profile underage sex ring for years and it still took ages for him to actually get collared for it. Thiel is orders of magnitude richer and more powerful than Epstein ever was, in addition to being significantly more intelligent and far more cautious. Thus, if there is any truth to the rumors, there is an almost zero percent chance he will ever face justice for it…at least not in a court of law.

Of course, this could all be merely a series of vicious rumors and smears being spread by a band of demented activists and political operatives driven by an unquenchable resentment toward men greater than themselves and who seek to turn them into scapegoats for their own personal failures and for the unspeakable shame they feel when contemplating the inauthentic nature of the origin of their own desire.

Alternatively, Thiel’s ‘they hate me because I’m beautiful’ Girardian squid ink defense could itself be complete bullshit. Merely the rhetorical camouflage used by a billionaire superpredator enslaved by his own perverse desires and fantasies, a person who will do almost anything in order to further his goal of obtaining absolute power, not only over other people but ultimately over life and death itself.

Or perhaps it is something else entirely.

The choice is hard…

You must choose.

1. Thiel has learned a lot about the game of politics since his early days of fame and fortune, back when he was a ‘victim’ of Gawker. A lot has changed since then, and I don’t just mean what happened with that particular media outlet. Thiel has learned the importance of shaping media narratives to his favor. Sometimes this can take the form of creating new media networks (both IRL and online) to forward his goals and also defend against attacks. But it has also meant cultivating allies in the old media, with the latter being a bit more complicated than the former. In general this is accomplished by feeding a journalist information. Information is what a journalist’ career is based upon; their ability to continue getting work and advance their career is based upon their ability to obtain information. Thus, sources can actually have a significant amount of influence over a journalist’ work, especially in a long-running relationship. While the movies may have you believe that sources are tortured ‘deep ’throat’-like insiders who decide to risk everything because of a crisis of conscience (or something), the reality is quite different. Most sources, at least the smart ones, are trying to get something from the transaction (just like most transactions, financial or otherwise). In the short term, they are either looking to harm a particular target or further a particular cause, or, if they are particularly savvy, they are looking to establish a longer-term relationship with a journalist. Becoming a repeat source for a journalist over a longer time span gives you significantly more leverage than almost any other approach. The old adage that "if you owe the bank a hundred thousand dollars, the bank owns you. If you owe the bank a hundred million dollars, you own the bank" is just as true in journalism as it is in anything else. If you feed a particular journalist enough information, you will slowly build capital with that journalist and, more importantly, also build leverage. The journalist will become dependent on you and begin to treat you accordingly; this then allows you to ask for ‘favors’ of various kinds, because nothing in this world is truly free. This can be a somewhat powerful position for a ‘regular’ individual to be in, but it’s an even more powerful arrangement for someone like Thiel to be in, as he can offer a journalist not just an occasional scoop in one particular beat but the combined informational resources of the entire Thielverse. This means an endless supply of scoops and info on government and tech in addition to direct access to Thiel himself and his many, many allies in both the tech and governmental sphere. For someone covering government and tech, this arrangement would be career-making, something that could rocket an individual from obscurity to the big leagues. The New York Times, even! And this appears to be what may have happened to Theodore Schleifer, the journalist who authored a piece that appeared in the high-minded centrist publication Puck News a few months after Thomas’s death. The piece was remarkable for a few reasons, chief among them being just how deferential to Thiel it really was. I mean, the thing might as well have been written by Thiel’s PR department (though to be fair, it is not nearly as shameless as almost anything written by an essentially ‘out’ Thieloid like James Pogue). It’s just extremely incurious about its subject and seems to defer to Thiel’s preferred perspective at every available opportunity while pursuing the other side like a DA seeking a conviction. Thus, while I think the piece in question is certainly worth reading in the context of Thomas’s death, one should also take care to do so with several dump trucks worth of salt, as Schleifer’s lack of even the appearance of basic journalistic objectivity (at least in this particular piece) combined with his extensive use of Thielworld sources (including Thiel himself, who seems awfully willing to talk to Schleifer at length) render him a bit biased at best, and at worst, something far more sinister.