JD Vance calls on Peter Thiel to support Trump: 'Get off the sidelines'

JD Vance is urging tech billionaire Peter Thiel, who is funding his Senate run, to support Trump.
Thiel supported Trump's campaign in 2016 but has retired from politics since 2022.
“If we lose, he will be completely exhausted with politics,” Vance said.

With just over two months to go before Election Day, Senator JD Vance of Ohio is urging his biggest donor, tech billionaire Peter Thiel, to get involved in the 2024 election campaign.

“He's basically a conservative guy and I think he needs to come out of his shell and support the candidacy,” Vance told the Financial Times this week.

Thiel, co-founder of Paypal and Palantir and known for his controversial conservative views, endorsed Trump in 2016 when few others in Silicon Valley did so. He even spoke at the Republican National Convention that year and remains one of the few openly gay people to do so. He donated $1.25 million to pro-Trump groups that year.

His involvement in politics deepened in 2022, when he pumped tens of millions of dollars into super PACs to elect both Vance and Blake Masters, a close associate and co-author of Thiel's book “Zero to One.”

Masters lost his Senate election in Arizona to Democratic Senator Mark Kelly and lost the House primary this year to Abe Hamadeh.

Since the 2022 election cycle, Thiel has publicly withdrawn from politics, telling Fortune that while he would vote for the Republican presidential nominee, he has no plans to financially support any candidate. He also said that financial contributions make little difference at the presidential level.

“They're going to get their message out, or they're not going to get it out,” Thiel told the outlet. “They're going to convince people, or they're not going to convince people. And an extra million dollars or ten million dollars makes no difference.”

Vance indicated this week that talks with Thiel were still ongoing.

“I'm going to keep talking to Peter and convincing him – you know he's obviously a little exhausted with politics – but he's really going to be exhausted with politics if we lose and Kamala Harris becomes president,” Vance told the Financial Times.

A spokesperson for Thiel did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.