Peter Thiel—the billionaire enterprise capitalist, PayPal, and Palantir cofounder, and outspoken commentator on all issues regarding the “Antichrist”—seems a minimum of 2,200 occasions within the newest batch of recordsdata launched by the Division of Justice associated to convicted intercourse offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The tranche of information display how Epstein managed to domesticate an intensive community of rich and influential figures in Silicon Valley. Various them, together with Thiel, continued to work together with Epstein even after his 2008 responsible plea for solicitation of prostitution and of procurement of minors to interact in prostitution.
The brand new recordsdata present that Thiel organized to fulfill with Epstein a number of occasions between 2014 and 2017. “What are you as much as on Friday?” Thiel wrote to Epstein on April 5, 2016. “Ought to we attempt for lunch?” The majority of the communications between the 2 males within the information dump concern scheduling meals, calls, and conferences with each other. Thiel didn’t instantly return a request for remark from WIRED.
One piece of correspondence stands out for being notably weird. On February 3, 2016, Thiel’s former chief of employees and senior govt assistant, Alisa Bekins, despatched an electronic mail with the topic line “Assembly – Feb 4 – 9:30 AM – Peter Thiel dietary restrictions – CONFIDENTIAL.” The preliminary recipient of the e-mail is redacted, however it was later forwarded on to Epstein.
The contents of the message are additionally redacted in a minimum of one model of the e-mail chain uploaded by the Justice Division on Friday. Nevertheless, two different recordsdata from what seems to be the identical set of messages have much less data redacted.
In a single electronic mail, Bekins listed some two dozen permitted sorts of sushi and animal protein, 14 permitted greens, and 0 permitted fruits for Thiel to eat. “Recent herbs” and olive oil have been permitted; nonetheless, ketchup, mayonnaise, and soy sauce ought to be prevented. Just one precise meal was explicitly outlined: “egg whites or greens/salad with some type of protein,” reminiscent of steak, which Bekins included “within the occasion they eat breakfast.” It is unclear if the February 4 assembly finally occurred; different emails point out Thiel obtained caught in site visitors on his method to meet Epstein that day.
In accordance with a recording of an undated dialog between Epstein and former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak that was additionally a part of the recordsdata the DOJ launched on Friday, Epstein advised Barak that he hoped to fulfill Thiel the next week. He added that he was conversant in Thiel’s firm Palantir, however proceeded to spell it out loud for Barak as “Pallentier.” Epstein speculated that Thiel would possibly put Barak on the board of Palantir, although there’s no proof that ever occurred.
“I’ve by no means met Peter Thiel, and all people says he kind of jumps round and acts actually unusual, like he is on medicine,” Epstein mentioned at one level within the audio recording, referring to Thiel. The previous prime minister expressed settlement with Epstein’s evaluation.
In 2015 and 2016, Epstein put $40 million in two funds managed by one in every of Thiel’s funding corporations, Valar Ventures, in accordance with The New York Instances. Epstein and Thiel continued to speak and have been discussing assembly with each other as lately as January 2019, in accordance with the recordsdata launched by the DOJ. Epstein dedicated suicide in his jail cell in August of that 12 months.
Beneath are Thiel’s dietary restrictions as outlined within the February 2016 electronic mail. (The next checklist has been reformatted barely for readability.)
