Tech billionaire and Republican megadonor Peter Thiel, an early backer of former President Donald Trump who later broke with him, has told associates he is not planning to donate to any political candidates in 2024, according to two people close to the businessman.Thiel, a married gay libertarian-bordering-on-anarchocapitalist, spoke at the 2016 Republican National Convention, decrying "fake culture wars" that were distracting us from America's economic decline.
Thiel is unhappy with the Republican Party's focus on hot-button U.S. cultural issues, said one of the sources, a business associate, citing abortion and restrictions on which bathrooms transgender students can use in schools as two examples.
Six years later, that culture war stuff is all the big names in the GOP are leaning into, because that's the red meat that gets the base all agitated and the hicks in the sticks buying merch and texting donations to various candidates and their associated PACs.
I guess Thiel didn't think the leopards would eat his face.
*And yes, it's absolutely kayfabe.
