Peter Thiel
American entrepreneur and venture capitalist who co-founded PayPal and Palantir Technologies, co-founded the venture firm Founders Fund, was an early Facebook investor, and was named among the private backers whose funding launched OpenAI in December 2015.
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- Established
- 1967-10-11
- Country
- United States
- Born
- Peter Andreas Thiel, October 11, 1967, Frankfurt am Main, West Germany
- Education
- Stanford University (B.A., philosophy, 1989); Stanford Law School (J.D., 1992)
- Known for
- Co-founder of PayPal; co-founder and chairman of Palantir Technologies; co-founder of venture firm Founders Fund; early investor in Facebook
- OpenAI connection
- Named among the private investors who pledged funding toward OpenAI's December 2015 founding, alongside Elon Musk and Sam Altman
- Reported net worth
- $34.7 billion as of September 10, 2026, per Forbes's real-time billionaires estimate
Overview
Peter Andreas Thiel is an American entrepreneur and venture capitalist, born October 11, 1967, in Frankfurt am Main, West Germany, and raised from around age one in the United States (Britannica Money). He studied philosophy at Stanford University, graduating in 1989 and founding the campus publication The Stanford Review, before earning a law degree from Stanford Law School in 1992 (Britannica Money). He went on to co-found the payments company that became PayPal, co-found the data-analytics firm Palantir Technologies, co-found the venture capital firm Founders Fund, and become an early investor in Facebook (Britannica Money). On December 11, 2015, Thiel was named among the group of private investors — including Elon Musk and Sam Altman — whose pledges backed the launch of OpenAI (MIT Technology Review).
PayPal
In 1998, Thiel co-founded Confinity, a company originally built around payments between Palm Pilot handheld devices. In 1999, Confinity merged with Elon Musk’s online-banking startup X.com; the combined company was later renamed PayPal, with Thiel serving as chief executive and chairman and describing its ambition as building “a new world currency” for internet money transfers. In 2002, eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion, a deal that made Thiel a multimillionaire (Britannica Money).
Palantir and Founders Fund
In 2004, Thiel co-founded Palantir Technologies, a data-analytics company that has worked with government agencies including the CIA as well as commercial clients such as banks doing fraud detection; Palantir went public via a direct listing in 2020 (Britannica Money; Forbes). That same year, he became an early investor in Facebook (Britannica Money) — a stake Forbes reports he has since mostly sold, alongside his departure from Meta’s board (Forbes). In 2005, Thiel co-founded the venture capital firm Founders Fund, whose portfolio has included Airbnb, Lyft, and SpaceX (Britannica Money); Forbes attributes part of Thiel’s current wealth to Founders Fund’s stakes in companies including Stripe and SpaceX (Forbes).
OpenAI’s founding
On December 11, 2015, OpenAI was announced as a nonprofit artificial intelligence research organization backed by pledges totaling more than $1 billion from a group of private investors (MIT Technology Review; Forbes). Thiel is named in each of the four contemporaneous or later accounts read for this profile as part of that investor group. MIT Technology Review’s account states that “the venture would start with $1 billion from private investors, including Musk, Altman, and PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel” — grouping Thiel with the financial backers, distinct from its description of Greg Brockman as chief technology officer and Ilya Sutskever as research director (MIT Technology Review). GeekWire similarly reported that Musk “is joined by his old PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and early PayPal board member Reid Hoffman in backing the project,” while a separate Forbes article listed Thiel among those “donating to support OpenAI” (GeekWire; Forbes). None of the four sources read for this profile describes Thiel personally using the word “co-founder” or “founder” of OpenAI; each identifies him specifically as a financial backer or investor.
Political and philanthropic activity
Thiel has funded high-profile litigation and political campaigns. Britannica reports that he secretly financed Hulk Hogan’s invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against Gawker Media; the resulting judgment helped drive Gawker into bankruptcy, and the funding became public in 2016, the same year Thiel became a vocal public supporter of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign (Britannica Money).
Thiel later played a formative role in the political career of J.D. Vance. The two met when Vance, then a Yale Law School student, attended a lecture Thiel gave on American technological stagnation; Thiel subsequently employed Vance as a venture capitalist at his firm, Mithril Capital. In February 2021, Thiel brought Vance to his first in-person meeting with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, and in 2022 Thiel contributed $15 million to Vance’s U.S. Senate campaign in Ohio — described by CBS News as “a staggering amount from a single individual for a Senate race” — while also directing at least $200,000 to a super PAC supporting Vance through a group he controls, Per Aspera Policy (CBS News).
Wealth
Forbes’s real-time billionaires index listed Thiel’s net worth at $34.7 billion as of September 10, 2026, attributing it to his historical Facebook stake, his holdings through Founders Fund (including stakes in Stripe, valued at $159 billion as of February 2026, and SpaceX), and his stake in Palantir (Forbes).
What this profile does not claim
This profile does not assert that Peter Thiel held any operational founding role, board seat, or executive title at OpenAI. The four OpenAI-launch sources read for this profile consistently describe him as one of the private financial backers whose pledges made up the announced $1 billion in initial funding — a status they distinguish from the roles of Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever, and, in MIT Technology Review’s case, from its own description of Musk and Altman as being counted “among its founders.” It also does not state Thiel’s individual dollar contribution to that initial funding, nor whether he has retained any ongoing relationship with OpenAI since 2015 — no source read for this profile addresses either point. It does not give a current place of residence for Thiel, since no source read for this profile confirms one. Finally, the $34.7 billion net worth figure is a single-date snapshot (September 10, 2026) from Forbes’s real-time index and is not asserted to hold at any later date.
Timeline
- 1967-10-11
- Born in Frankfurt am Main, West Germany; moves to the United States around age one.
- 1989
- Earns a B.A. in philosophy from Stanford University, where he founds The Stanford Review, a publication critical of campus political correctness.
- 1992
- Graduates from Stanford Law School.
- 1998
- Co-founds Confinity, a company built around payments for Palm Pilot devices.
- 1999
- Confinity merges with Elon Musk's X.com; the combined company is later renamed PayPal, with Thiel serving as CEO and chairman.
- 2002
- eBay acquires PayPal for $1.5 billion, making Thiel a multimillionaire.
- 2004
- Co-founds Palantir Technologies, a data-analytics company that works with government agencies including the CIA as well as commercial clients; separately becomes an early investor in Facebook.
- 2005
- Co-founds Founders Fund, a venture capital firm whose later investments include Airbnb, Lyft, and SpaceX.
- 2007
- Publicly identifies as gay after a Gawker article reports on his sexual orientation.
- 2015-12-11
- Is named among the private investors — alongside Elon Musk and Sam Altman — who together pledge more than $1 billion to launch OpenAI, a nonprofit artificial intelligence research organization.
- 2016
- It becomes public that Thiel has been secretly funding Hulk Hogan's invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against Gawker Media, which results in a judgment that drives the company into bankruptcy; the same year he becomes a vocal supporter of Donald Trump's presidential campaign.
- 2020
- Palantir Technologies goes public via a direct listing.
- 2021-02
- Brings J.D. Vance, then a first-time political prospect, to Vance's first in-person meeting with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
- 2022
- Contributes $15 million to J.D. Vance's 2022 Ohio U.S. Senate campaign and directs at least $200,000 to Vance's allied super PAC through a group he controls, Per Aspera Policy.
- 2022
- Sells most of his Facebook (Meta) stake and leaves Meta's board.
- 2026-09-10
- Forbes's real-time billionaires estimate lists Thiel's net worth at $34.7 billion, attributed to his historical Facebook stake, Founders Fund holdings (including stakes in Stripe and SpaceX), and Palantir.
What we could not verify
These claims came up in research and could not be confirmed. They are recorded here rather than published as fact or quietly dropped. If you hold a source that settles one, please tell us.
- None of the four OpenAI-launch sources read for this profile (MIT Technology Review, the two Forbes articles, and GeekWire) describes Thiel personally as an OpenAI "co-founder" or "founder" — each identifies him specifically as one of the private investors or financial backers whose pledges made up the announced $1 billion, a status they distinguish from operational founders/leadership such as Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever, and (in MIT Technology Review's case) from how the same article describes Musk and Altman. This profile does not assert that Thiel held any formal founding role, board seat, or executive title at OpenAI.
- No source read for this profile states Thiel's individual dollar contribution toward OpenAI's announced $1 billion in initial funding pledges, or whether he has any continuing financial or advisory relationship with OpenAI after its 2015 launch.
- No source read for this profile confirms Thiel's current place of residence, so this profile omits a `location` field rather than guess.
- The $34.7 billion net worth figure is a September 10, 2026 snapshot from Forbes's real-time index and will change; this profile does not assert it is current as of any later date.
Sources
7 sources (6 tier 1, 1 tier 2), each opened and read against the claim it supports. Every source is independent of the subject; no first-party material is cited. See the source policy.
This profile leans on Britannica Money for Thiel's core biography and on four independently fetched accounts of OpenAI's December 2015 launch (MIT Technology Review, two separate Forbes articles, and GeekWire) to describe his specific role there. All four of those accounts describe Thiel as one of the private financial backers who pledged funds toward OpenAI's launch — not as one of its operational founders — and this profile follows that distinction rather than the looser "founder" language sometimes used for the launch group as a whole.
- Peter Thiel Supports: Birth date and place, education at Stanford University and Stanford Law School, the founding of Confinity/PayPal and its 2002 sale to eBay, the 2004 co-founding of Palantir Technologies, the 2004 Facebook investment, the 2005 founding of Founders Fund, his 2007 public disclosure as gay, his funding of the Hogan-Gawker litigation and its 2016 disclosure, and his 2016 public support for Donald Trump.
- The messy, secretive reality behind OpenAI's bid to save the world Supports: OpenAI's December 11, 2015 founding announcement and the description of "PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel" as one of the private investors, alongside Musk and Altman, behind its initial $1 billion in funding pledges — distinct from the article's description of Brockman and Sutskever's operational roles.
- Elon Musk, Silicon Valley Elite Launch 'Open' Artificial Intelligence With $1 Billion Supports: Corroborating OpenAI's December 11, 2015 launch, the $1 billion pledged funding figure, and Thiel's inclusion among the private investors backing the launch.
- Elon Musk And Peter Thiel Launch OpenAI, A Non-Profit Artificial Intelligence Research Company Supports: Further corroboration that Thiel was named among those "donating to support OpenAI," alongside Reid Hoffman and Jessica Livingston, and OpenAI's stated mission at launch.
- The billionaire who fueled J.D. Vance's rapid rise to the Trump VP spot Supports: Thiel and Vance's history — meeting at a Yale Law School lecture, Vance's subsequent employment at Thiel's firm Mithril Capital, Thiel's $15 million contribution to Vance's 2022 Senate campaign and further funds directed to Vance's super PAC via Per Aspera Policy, and Thiel introducing Vance to Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in February 2021.
- Peter Thiel Supports: The $34.7 billion net worth estimate as of September 10, 2026; that Thiel has sold most of his Facebook/Meta stake and left its board; Palantir's 2020 direct-listing public debut; and Founders Fund's stakes in Stripe and SpaceX.
- Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman and others commit $1B to stop AI from taking over the world Supports: Describing Thiel as joining "his old PayPal co-founder" Musk and early PayPal board member Reid Hoffman "in backing" OpenAI's launch, and the more-than-$1-billion pledged total.
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