Silicon Valley leaders felt safe supporting Donald Trump after Elon Musk rallied behind him: Peter Thiel

Billionaire and former PayPal CEO Peter Thiel. Reuters

Billionaire Peter Thiel said Silicon Valley leaders felt safe supporting President-elect Donald Trump after billionaire Elon Musk rallied behind him.

The former PayPal CEO said this to journalist Bari Weiss on an episode of her "Honestly" podcast published last week.

"There was some degree to which it was safer for people to speak out when other people were speaking out," Thiel said on the podcast.

Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz were among the technology whizzes to throw their support behind the onetime reality TV star’s repeat run at the White House. David Sacks, the Craft Ventures founder, Sequoia Capital partners Doug Leone and Shaun Maguire were also in Trump’s corner, as are Palantir Technologies co-founder Joe Lonsdale and Social Capital CEO Chamath Palihapitiya. Cryptocurrency investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss have contributed to the Trump campaign, too.

Thiel spoke about the events that could have unfolded if Trump hadn't defeated Democrat candidate Kamala Harris.

"I didn't want to believe Elon but then it was the sense in which I felt he was correct: If Trump could not win in 2024 against The Machine, The Machine would always win — And if The Machine always wins, you no longer have a democracy. If The Machine could defeat Trump, I thought it was reasonable that it would gain even more power and somehow be unbeatable and the country would become a one party state," said Thiel.

The billionaire also spoke about post-internet election campaigns in US.

"The last time identity politics worked for real was the 2008 election with Obama. It worked because we were still in a pre-internet world. This meant you could tell one message to one group of people and a different message to a different group. For Black voters, Obama could say he was a Black person, and to White voters, Obama could say he was post-racial. By the time you get to 2016, it doesn't actually work anymore. This micro-targeting political strategy from the 90s was way past its sell-by date by 2016," said Thiel.

One of the Nordic region's largest investors has sold its holdings in Palantir Technologies because of concerns that the US data firm's work for Israel might put the asset manager at risk of violating international humanitarian law and human rights.

The data analytics firm, co-founded by billionaire Peter Thiel, provides militaries with artificial-intelligence models.

Earlier this year, it agreed to a strategic partnership to supply technology to Israel to assist in the ongoing war in Gaza.