Scholars attack Trump ally's twisted theology as a dangerous delusion

Transcript:President Donald Trump’s billionaire ally and military technology supplier, Palantir CEO Peter Thiel, says he is an expert on the Antichrist . but actual experts disagree.“Thiel’s evangelism is another example of how the right has strategically co-opted Christian religious teachings to provide support for their autocratic tendencies, as well as their fears about technology being limited through ‘woke’ beliefs,” Anthea Butler, chair of the University of Pennsylvania Department of Religious Studies, wrote in a Tuesday editorial for MSNOW. Earlier in the piece, Butler broke down the components of Thiel’s religious philosophy, identifying them as a “mishmash of his political and personal beliefs about technology, civilization, race and democracy. And his views on the antichrist range from the disturbing to the nonsensical.”Thiel, a businessman in the military-industrial complex, “believes the antichrist will push the world toward peace using the fear of war” and “use peace to slow down or even stop technological advances,” including the AI technology in which Thiel has invested billions.“He’s said it’s possible that climate change activist Greta Thunberg and other critics could be ‘legionnaires of the Antichrist,’” a notable position given AI’s disproportionate impact on climate change.“It’s a belief structure built on fear . and Thiel’s fear appears to be that western civilization will be crushed by a myriad of people and forces that don’t adhere to his interpretation of technocratic Christian beliefs,” Butler explained. Other top Catholic scholars agree with her, including Italian theologian Father Paolo Benanti, who denounced Thiel’s beliefs as “a sustained act of heresy,” and the Jesuit priest Antonio Spadaro, who said Thiel misunderstands what the Antichrist actually is.“The Antichrist, rather than a theological figure, is a concrete, identifiable historical possibility,” Spadaro said. “This is the point at which the Gospel is transformed into an instrument of geopolitical analysis.”Butler also pointed out that Thiel’s potential belief that humanity should cease to exist are equally troubling and “should give us all pause.”“The next time Thiel embarks on his lecture tour to tout his teachings about the Antichrist, remember that his lectures are the musings of a man who wants technology to overtake the emotional connections that humans have,” Butler wrote. “The New York Times’ Ross Douthat asked Thiel in a June 2025 interview, ‘I think you would prefer the human race to endure, right?’ After a long hesitation, Thiel replied, ‘There’s so many questions implicit in this,’ before eventually offering a ‘Yes.’”In addition to supplying the Pentagon, Thiel was also connected to Israel through the convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, who helped Palantir expand into the Middle East. Ultimately Epstein’s theology seems to be motivated less by a consistent core belief system than a hodgepodge of ideas united mainly by their convenience to Thiel’s various business and political interests."Peter Thiel's Armageddon speaking tour has . like the world . not ended yet," Wired reporter Laura Bullard explained in September. "For a full two years now, the billionaire has been on the circuit, spreading his biblically inflected ideas about doomsday through a set of variably and sometimes visibly perplexed interviewers…. Depending on who you are, you may find it hilarious, fascinating, insufferable, or horrifying that one of the world's most powerful men is obsessing over a figure from sermons and horror movies. But the ideas and influences behind these talks are key to understanding how Thiel sees his own massive role in the world . in politics, technology, and the fate of the species."s