Elon thread

@capitolhunters 11/17/2022

For sources see bit.ly/ElonMuskThread
Archived at https://archive.ph/gzGpF

Subthread on Thiel/Sacks is below

Someone has to say it: Elon Musk has lied for 27 years about his credentials. He does not have a BS in Physics, or any technical field. Did not get into a PhD program. Dropped out in 1995 & was illegal. Later, investors quietly arranged a diploma - but not in science. 1/ (thread symbol)

Screenshots, annotated
Degree, business plan 1995, SEC filing 2002

2009: “Musk has falsely claimed to have a degree in Physics from the University of Pennsylvania that he obtained in 1995, when in fact he has no such degree and the only degree he holds was obtained later than that. Upon information and belief, Musk’s only known undergraduate degree is a Bachelor’s of Science in Economics, obtained from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997.”

2
This thread will be long. Finding the key contradictions took just a few hours, back in May, but it’s important to be complete. So I’ll go through it all, and why it’s dangerous for the US.

Please retweet. Sunshine disinfects.
All sources at bit.ly/ElonMuskThread
2/

contradictions list in source document

3
Catching Elon in a lie isn’t hard. In 2013: “I had to [stay in school]..otherwise I’d get kicked out of the country.” (This is correct.) Then “since I already had my undergrad, I could..get an H1-B visa” (That’s a lie). In 1995 he had no degree, so no visa. He was illegal. 3/

Video clip of SXWS

40:22 If the goal is to start a company, I would say no point in finishing college. In my case I had to, otherwise I’d get kicked out of the country. So that was important, but..

Interviewer: Although you went on, and got a master’s degree as well, right?

I came out to Silicon Valley to do a PhD at Stanford in Applied Physics and Materials Science, to work on ultracapacitors for use in electric cars. That’s what I was going to do, and then I sort of put that on hold to start a company. But since I already had my undergrad, I could then get an H1-B visa and that sort of thing. The H1-B visa requires a degree. But other than that, if that wasn’t the case, I probably would have stopped education sooner. “ 41:09

To be clear: no one cares about the degree; the immigration violation is history. What matters is Elon’s Big Lie, pretending to be what he isn’t. The academic “stolen valor” subverts judgment (“but he’s a genius!”). And it opens him to influence. It makes him a security risk. 4/

compilation video
2012 - Caltech

2:41-2:54
2:41-3:18 “So I studied - uh - Physics and Business because I figured in order to do a lot of these things you need to know how the universe works and you need to know how the economy works

2013: Yeah yeah. I did a dual undergrad in Physics and Business at Wharton.

2013 - SXSW

48:37-49:23

Q: “What’s the best advice you’ve ever got?” A “Well, I think that - uh - physics training is a very good training, where it’s a good framework for reasoning where you’re trained to think about first principles and reason from there, and that means boiling things down to the most fundamental truths, and then connecting those truths in a way to try to understand how reality is - because physics has this problem with trying to figure out things that are totally counterintuitive - and so they had to have a framework for getting there. Like quantum mechanics is incredibly counterintuitive - uh - but it’s true.”
2015 - Stanford
Elon “that's not exactly advice. That has been encapsulated into time-warping wisdom. Yeah, exactly like wisdom. I mean there's a lot of things. Listen more to critical feedback. A lot of things I learned in college actually were pretty helpful.
11:30-11:58

I mean, I think the physics approach to thinking is very good-- like the first principles approach. And you applied that broadly? Yeah, applying the first principles in process of thinking is, I think, a good way to figure out counter-intuitive situations. And I thought that was really a helpful thing to learn.

5 Elon’s key influences are the “PayPal Mafia” capos, Peter Thiel & David Sacks. They urged him to buy Twitter, advise him on running it. Both with childhoods in apartheid S. Africa, angry culture wars at Stanford, now working on Thiel’s ‘political project’ to upend democracy. 5/

graphic from Stanford Politics, with Thiel and Sacks circled

6
So Elon matters, & people around him are not America’s friends. Someone has to call out the secrets. Many people know - Elon’s been sued over the fake degree - but even as Twitter tanks, no one has the guts to talk. Silicon Valley’s the last place to lecture us on free speech. 6/

Elon tweets with Sacks influence + WSJ quotes

7
@twittersafety (if anyone’s left): this thread describes public evidence about a public figure; it’s not a violation. It’s citizen journalism. Also remember the “Streisand Effect”: suspending this account would make the story go bigger. I would go public. It would be news. 7/

Elon tweet screenshot

8
Outline
A. Review: from college to Zip2 (9-12)

B. No visa (13-16)

C. No Physics degree (17-30)

D. No PhD acceptance (31-44)

E. Quitting Twitter’s board (45-48)

F. Why it matters: national security (49-52)

G. Things to do (53-60)

H. Thoughts (61-XX)
8/

No attachment - or link to the thread itself, or to the folder

PART A - REVIEW. Elon Musk moved from South Africa to Canada in 1989, did odd jobs for a year, then enrolled at Queen’s Univ., where he wore logos from the business program: “QC” = “Queen’s Commerce”. After 2 years, he transferred to Penn. At this point he’d be on an F-1 visa. 9/

Photo in business school uniform

Correction - if Elon got Canadian citizenship when he was in Canada (via his mother), he’d need to apply for F-1 status which is slightly different than an F-1.
https://www.owu.edu/files/resources/specialimmigrationnotesforcanadians.pdf

His bio describes Elon’s college years. Queens: “went to the least number of classes possible.” Penn: ”video game binges that went on for days.” He lived in a party house with glow-in-the-dark decor, 500-person ragers. But “it's difficult to find..students who remember him” 10/

Screenshots of magazine page, annotated with book title and source (excerpted Esquire)

11
After 3 years at Penn, Elon left for CA with brother Kimbal, tried to catch the internet wave. They rented a Palo Alto office, slept in it when not coding. By Nov 3, 1995, Elon filed to incorporate “Global Link Information Network Inc.”, a kind of online business directory. 11/

Filing:. Screenshot of search page. Picture of Elon and Kimbal (from site builder report)
Business filing

12
In the go-go 1990s, the internet was new & investors moved fast. In 1996 Mohr Davidow Ventures offered $3M for Global Link. On Aug 15, just 8 months after its startup, the change was official: Rich Sorkin was named CEO, and Elon became Secretary. They renamed it Zip2.

12/
Screenshot of filing

PART B - THE VISA. Mohr Davidow now had a problem: Elon was undocumented. This is indisputable. If he’d finished a degree, he could have gone on OPT - starting a business counts as “practical training”. But as a dropout, there’s no legal path to stay. 13/

Screenshot of visa regulations - overstaying a student visa

14
Nowadays a 1-year overstay means you’d be deported, could be barred for 3 years. In the 1990s, there might be workarounds. But what were Mohr Davidow’s options? Elon wouldn’t qualify for an EB-1 “genius” visa: 8 months of “hairball” code doesn’t prove “extraordinary ability” 14/

Screenshot of visa requirements
https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/permanent-workers/employment-based-immigration-first-preference-eb-1

15
Elon mentions the H1-B “specialty occupations” visa many times. Those were easier to get in the 1990s than now, but still had a hard criterion: you need an undergrad degree. And Elon didn’t have one. He couldn’t even apply til he somehow managed to get a diploma. 15/

Screenshot of requirements
https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/h-1b-specialty-occupations

16
Elon didn’t have the $1M in non-US money he’d need for an EB-5 “immigrant investor” visa. Mohr Davidow could quietly stake him some, but that’s not legal. Of course, hiring an undocumented worker isn’t legal either. So dodgy things happened in 1996. By 1997, a path was found. 16/

Video compilation
2022
35:13 “for my first company Zip2, I had no money, so I could not invest in Zip 2” to 35:19

DON’T USE

2003: 44:15 “Thing were pretty tough in the early going -I didn’t have any money in fact I had negative money a huge student debt. I couldn’t afford a place to stay and an office so I rented an office instead” “I got a cheaper office than I could get a place to stay. I just slept on the futon..”

PART C - DEGREES. Again, we care about Elon’s degrees because HE cares - a lot. He’s made Physics part of his identity. He talks about it so much there’s a highlight reel. The 27-year lie is his persona.17/

Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSkJTkhLYxA

18
Why the lie? A Physics degree isn’t even that useful for Elon’s career. Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, founders of Tesla Motors, have what you’d actually want: CS and Electrical Engineering. But “Physics” does that to some people. It’s a kind of status worship. 18/

Bio screenshot of Tesla founders, highlighted

So let’s walk through evidence carefully: 1) evidence from lawsuits (subpoenas and depositions), 2) Elon’s coursework, 3) statements from Penn, 4) false statements to his biographer. 19/

Screenshot of contradictions again with highlights

20
1 - Lawsuits. Here’s the story of how we have Elon’s diplomas. In 1995, Elon interviewed at a startup, then ghosted them, started Global Link instead. The owner sued, alleging Elon swiped his business plan. The case hinged on deception, since borrowing ideas is legal. 20/

Cover sheet of lawsuit, page showing claim of computational physics

21
To get the interview, Elon said he was a Stanford PhD student, with degrees in Computational Physics & Finance. The plaintiff called that fraud & subpoenaed Penn. It seems Elon was indeed given two diplomas, but only in 1997, and the 2nd one has no department. 21/

The diplomas

Note that pulling strings at Penn’s Wharton School is not that big a scandal. Credentialing unstudious elites is part of Wharton’s game: Trump & Trump Jr are grads too. But Penn Physics is small, just a handful of graduates, and holding their reputation requires standards. 22/

Article on Trump’s donation (long), article on Trump being absent

23
Elon had to sit for a deposition as part of the 2007 lawsuit. He was grilled about saying “Computational Physics”, which doesn’t exist at Penn. When asked about the blank diploma, he evaded. Elon’s been talking his way out of situations for a long time. He won the suit. 23/

More Screenshots - maybe a closeup

In 2009, ousted Tesla Motors founder Martin Eberhard also sued, & again attacked Elon’s Physics degree claim. Eberhard reused material from the earlier suit, and added lies found in official SEC filings. This time it seems it was successful, since Elon settled out of court. 24/

Repeat from Tweet 1
“Musk has falsely claimed to have a degree in Physics from the University of Pennsylvania that he obtained in 1995, when in fact he has no such degree and the only degree he holds was obtained later than that. Upon information and belief, Musk’s only known undergraduate degree is a Bachelor’s of Science in Economics, obtained from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997

2 - Coursework. We know Elon did try Physics, but was academically behind. That’s clear from homework he posted: he’s a 3rd-year in 2nd-year Mechanics. It’s a red flag for someone who skips a lot of class. Some prodigies can ace tests without classes - but they aren’t behind. 25/

Screenshot of Twitter post:

26
3 - Penn statements: Penn’s Wharton School regularly claims Elon, world’s richest man, as an alumnus, but the Physics Dept. seems never to have done so. In their congrats to 1997 graduates, there’s no Elon. 26/

Screenshot from daily Pennsylvanian

27

Penn Arts & Sciences (which includes Physics), HAS called Elon a Physics alum, in one context: a bio for the “Elon Musk Public Lecture, made possible through a generous endowment gifted to the Center for Particle Cosmology in 2009”. Gifted the year of Elon’s deposition. 27/

https://www.sas.upenn.edu/events/ElonMusk2022

28
3 - False statements to his biographer. In 2015, Ashlee Vance put out a gushing bio of Elon. At some point he noticed that Elon’s degrees came 2 years late and asked about it, but then just accepted Elon’s strange answers, & shoved them in an appendix. They don’t hold up. 28/

Screenshot, highlighted

29
Elon explained his delayed diplomas by saying he had a minor problem at Penn: he hadn’t fulfilled his Language and History requirements, and when those were later dropped he got the degrees. But Penn has not dropped its Language and History requirements. 29/

Screenshot of Penn requirements
Correction: Elon says “English”, not “Language”; see source document for details

30
Elon also said he got so tied up in coding he “forgot” he hadn’t graduated. Just - no. No foreign student “forgets” about their visa status. (Note how Elon glides over being undocumented).

Even without the diploma, the inconsistencies should have tipped reporters off. 30/

Highlight statement

31
PART D - STANFORD. Lots more contradictions about Elon’s supposed acceptance to Stanford, so here’s the summary as a reminder. 31/

Screenshot of summary again, with Stanford stuff highlighted

32
In 1995, Elon claimed to be a Stanford PhD student in Materials Science and Engineering, but his story has morphed over time. Stories put him in any of 3 different departments at Stanford – MSE, or Applied Physics, or Physics - and sometimes even combine them. 32/

Collage of lawsuit , articles

For example, here Elon says “Applied Physics and Materials Science”. Again, no one forgets what they applied for. If a football player is drafted by the LA Rams, he doesn’t later say he was going to join the LA Lakers, or the LA Dodgers, or the “Ram Dodgers” . 33/

Video:
2003: ““I originally came up California to do energy physics at Stanford, actually”
2013 “I came out to Silicon Valley to do a PhD at Stanford in Applied Physics and Materials Science”

0:20-0:28 in clip

34
Somehow, faced with Elon’s wealth, no one flags the contradictions. In 2015, Stanford’s former president John Hennessy introduced Elon with “He arrived at Stanford to pursue his PhD In Physics, but left after two days”. Elon didn’t correct him. 34/

Video clip 2015

Elon’s deposition makes it clear he was not accepted to ANY department. He dodges saying which (“I spoke to…the Chairman of Science”), then talks about when he would pay tuition. But no science PhD student at Stanford pays tuition. Elon never saw an offer letter. 35/

Screenshot

36
Everyone should have had questions from the start. How could Elon start a PhD if he hadn’t graduated? He had 2 fantastical explanations. In 2009, he said Stanford had agreed he could do the PhD anyway, then go back and finish undergrad AFTER. Unheard of. 36/

Screenshot of deposition

37
In 2015 he told Vance a different story: that Penn and Stanford had made a special arrangement for him, and he would finish his undergrad WHILE doing his PhD. Also unheard of. And Elon was a nobody at that point. No investors to smooth his path. 37/

Screenshot

38
What happens in real life, is: if a student doesn’t finish his undergrad, his graduate admission is rescinded. In June. He’s done; he doesn’t set foot on campus. And if he’s on an F-1, he cannot work in the US and has to leave the country. Elon knows this. 38/

Short version of Tweet 3 video clip

The lawsuits forced Stanford to make a formal comment on Elon’s PhD stories. In Dec. 2008, Stanford’s Dean of Graduate Admissions, Judith Haccou, answered a subpoena with a terse response “...we are unable to locate a record in our office for Elon Musk”. 39/

Haccou letter

The story now gets disturbing. When Vance asked questions, Elon gave him a letter purportedly sent by Haccou in June 2009 attesting personally “you applied and were admitted to the graduate program in Material Science Engineering [sic]” It reads like a hostage video.. 40/

“As per special request from my colleagues in the School of Engineering, I have searched Stanford’s admission data base and acknowledge that you applied and were admitted to the graduate program in Material Science Engineering in 1995. Since you did not enroll, Stanford is not able to issue you an official certification document.”

https://twitter.com/capitolhunters/status/1528638931486613505

Annotate screenshot

..so strained it’s not believable. It made me feel ill: did someone pressure her to write that, to appease Elon? But maybe.. it’s a fake. Stanford’s lawyers would not let her contradict a filing in an ongoing lawsuit. And a 30-year employee wouldn’t misspell the department. 41/

Obit for Haccou: https://news.stanford.edu/report/2020/12/04/judith-haccou-former-director-graduate-admissions-died-69/

42
Bizarrely, Vance didn’t call Haccou to confirm. She died in 2019.

Most likely, Elon never applied to grad school. The 2007 lawsuit quotes an article saying he moved to CA on the advice of Queen’s U. business professor, to meet investors. Elon was in business, not science. 42/

Eberhard vs. Musk 52.0 P. 34

Last item to cover: this year Elon posted a gushing letter from Bill Nix, former chair of Stanford MSE “who would have been my professor.” This means less than it might seem. Nix doesn’t remember him from 1995. He’s reaching out to a potential donor after Elon mentioned him..43/

Screenshot : https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1560720224588120064

44

..in an interview the week before. No surprise: if you’re the richest man in the world, people say nice things about you.

Note: Elon says his PhD topic was “advanced capacitors and batteries to improve the energy density for electric vehicles”. Nix worked on neither in 1995. 44/

Video clip of Tesla owners interview + Jurvetson

45
PART E - QUITTING TWITTER’S BOARD. Given how many secrets Elon has, it was a surprise when he agreed to join Twitter’s board. The letter he signed on April 4 2022 agreed to a background check. Anything about degrees and visas was going to come out. 45/

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000119312522095651/d342257dex101.htm

46
The board idea cratered fast - you can see it unravel. Apr. 5-7 Elon and CEO Parag are cheerfully planning. Apr. 8 10:11 PM Elon suddenly sends Parag a screenshot from 1 min before & “I’m so sick of this”. That’s it. By 3:20 AM he is texting Kimbal about creating a new Twitter. 46/

Text screenshots, highlighted

47

The next morning, Apr. 9, he tells Twitter: “expect a take private offer” - a hostile takeover. The screenshot seems like Elon’s “Rosebud” moment. Of course he’s impulsive, could be random, but later events do suggest hidden secrets, since in August…47/

More texts, maybe a link

…as Twitter fought to make Elon pay up, he subpoenaed Stanford to ask if they’d talked to Twitter. What was he looking for? We may never know. In September, Twitter made his texts public. Elon caved within a week & agreed to buy, ending the lawsuit. 48/

Stanford Daily article link

https://stanforddaily.com/2022/08/31/elon-musk-subpoenas-stanford-in-legal-battle-with-twitter

49
PART F - NATL. SECURITY. A Twitter owner can do a lot of damage. By spreading disinfo if Twitter survives. Or by letting it die to stifle speech. By getting the personal info of journalists and activists. By pulling down info stored on Twitter, or even archived Tweets. 49/

Screenshot of something?

50
Trump should have taught us that an impulsive, insecure oligarch with dark secrets and poor judgment, who barely scraped through Wharton and talks too much with Russians, is a security risk. People with secrets can be used. 50/

DODGY TWEETS screenshot - Musk and Medvedev. https://twitter.com/Stone_SkyNews/status/1583528866605576192

The people whispering to Elon now - Peter Thiel and David Sacks - are not friends of free speech. Thiel has deliberately destroyed one media outlet already. He calls journalists “terrorists”. He may not care if Elon loses his fortune. 51/

https://twitter.com/capitolhunters/status/1589818641474031617

Thiel and Sacks are openly authoritarian, dislike democracy, and push disinfo. Read linked thread to understand. Thiel courts extremists on the right; Sacks befriends the left. Sacks spreads Putin’s propaganda overtly; Thiel more discreetly. 52/

https://twitter.com/capitolhunters/status/1589818550524743681

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53
PART G - THINGS TO DO. Call your Rep. or Senator. Much of Elon’s revenue is your tax dollars, paying for SpaceX launches. That can stop. Tesla is already under investigation for safety concerns. Twitter may be. Our astronauts need safety too. 53/

Screenshot of exchange with Sen. Markey

54
Demand changes to our immigration policy. Foreigners rightly can’t fund US political campaigns. Thiel, a naturalized citizen, spent $30M buying US Senators while also shopping for “golden passports”: he’s got his escape plan ready . Revise the rules to cut off that option. 54/

Screenshot of article

55

For journalists, you can ask questions. Even if people say “no comment”, it’s useful.
* Larry Davidow. Ask how Elon got paid in 1996 with no work permit. Ask him how the visa got arranged.
* Parag Agarwal. What did Elon show him the night he decided to buy Twitter? 55/

56
Universities
* Penn - ask for Physics students & faculty there ‘93-95. Does anyone remember Elon? Why the blank degree?
* Stanford legal: does the letter from Judith Haccou contradict their filing? Why was Stanford subpoenaed? What did they talk to Twitter about? 56/

Elon & Kimbal
* Kimbal: what visa did you enter the US with in 1995?
* Both: what was your visa status 1995–1997? When & how did you get work authorization?
* Elon: why did you say your degree was in 1995 in SEC filings?
* Elon: which Physics classes have you taken? 57/

Thiel’s neo-fascist set:
How does your anti-elite pose square with your pathetic degree-grubbing? Thiel’s lapdog JD Vance cried: “we have to attack..universities in this country..they pursue deceit and lies.” Should he give back his Yale degree? 58/

Article on Vance https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/01/style/usha-jd-vance-ohio.html

These guys don’t hate “The Cathedral”; they grovel to it. Look at Thiel’s pet politicians: Sacks, Cruz, Hawley, Masters, Vance have degrees from Stanford (4), UChicago (1), Princeton (1), Harvard (1), Yale (2). Elon’s made-up Physics degree gave him status too. 59/

Tom Nichols called it: they’re “insecure rich boys” “who wanted to burn everything down just to squelch that nose-to-the-glass feeling of resentment at those who never accepted them.” Journalists can push on that - speak the truth of who they are. 60/

https://twitter.com/RadioFreeTom/status/1588758424069742597

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61

PART H - THOUGHTS. We need to ask, given so much evidence, why Musk didn’t get more scrutiny. Rolling Stone called him a “naturally gifted engineer”. NYT: a “great inventor”. How did they know that? Journalists repeated the story til it seemed impossible to question. 61/

Screenshot of Rolling Stone

Ashlee Vance’s 2015 book is another level. Vance is not an impartial biographer but a full-on fan. Look at his Twitter feed: furiously defending Elon, criticizing his rivals. Vance is also S. African, by the way, like Elon & many in the PayPal Mafia (4 total counting Thiel). 62/

Vance screenshots.

Consider: sophisticated pundits laughed at how Trump fooled his naive supporters. They called him “a poor person’s idea of a rich businessman”. Well, Elon was a non-techie’s idea of a science genius. Transcribe his interviews - they’re word salad. You got fooled too. 63/

Transcription

64

It’s more disturbing that scientists were silent, who shouldn’t be fooled. Elon’s interviews about physics are… painful. Did people really not see? Or is this the devil’s bargain for elite universities, sucking up to potential donors? How much integrity can they give up? 64/

Of course I’ve been silent too, sitting on this since May. This account reports out on the Jan 6 Capitol attack; it serves law enforcement. Commenting on Elon might jeopardize that. Posting this makes me feel sick. But serving truth means calling out the Big Lies. 65/

- maybe Chafkin: “sociopath and fraud” quote in LA times

66
I stand by what’s in this thread. If Elon wants to sue for defamation, I’ll meet at the courthouse. But Elon, there’s an offramp. You can be a hero - stand up for America. Talk about what happened. Who pushed you to buy, and why? People may forgive. 66/

If this is the end, incredible props to all who worked on the Capitol attack. The #SeditionHunters were one of the largest crowdsourced efforts in history, and withstood efforts to disrupt it. Twitter was invaluable, awful, & amazing all at once. Next version can be better. 67/

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SUBTHREAD - BACKGROUND ON THIEL / SACKS

Anyone following this months’ Twitter saga is now hearing a lot about David Sacks and the PayPal Mafia. WSJ asked who pushed Elon to buy: the top 2 are Peter Thiel & David Sacks. WaPo asked who’s advising Elon now: again, Sacks. Deeply scary. (Thread) 1/

Sacks article

2

Thiel organized the influencers who later pulled crowds to the Capitol on Jan 6. His Senators (Cruz, Hawley) delayed the electoral vote. Sacks is now pushing Putin’s talking points - to Elon. The links are ugly. Here’s a try at showing some, and a review. Sources at end 2/

Sacks shot

Thiel & Sacks had childhoods in apartheid S. Africa (like Elon); bonded over feeling ‘canceled’ at Stanford. They wrote a book (“The Diversity Myth..”) with insensitive comments on ‘multicultural rape’. There was worse stuff in their 1992 Stanford Review “Rape Issue”. 3/

Screenshot of The Nation article

Tech boomed in the 1990s but Thiel (Philosophy) and Sacks (Econ) weren't coders. Thiel went to Credit Suisse abroad, but wasn’t a rising star. It must have hurt. When he returned for law school, he’d acquired investment money from unnamed “friends and family", put it in PayPal 4/

Thiel brought Sacks along to PayPal. They met Elon Musk when PayPal merged with his company. After PayPal was sold in 2002, Thiel ramped up what biographer Max Chafkin calls his ‘political project’. Key to it are Stanford Review alums - like Josh Hawley and Blake Masters.5/

Screenshot from LA Times article

6
Thiel stayed in touch with (& funded) the Stanford Review ever since the 1980s. He used it to built a vast network of ‘libertarian’ protegees, grooming them with jobs and investments. This article from Stanford Politics counted nearly 300. 6/

Stanford Politics link, and screenshot

7
In 2009, Thiel announced he “no longer believes freedom and democracy are compatible”, and started buying Senators: Ted Cruz from 2009, Josh Hawley from 2015, and this year $30M on Blake Masters (AZ) & JD Vance (OH). Hawley, Masters, and Vance all worked directly for Thiel. 7/

Cruz and Hawley pictures

2009 seems a milestone year and the start of another Thiel effort, to build US extremism and hate. Just 3 months after James O’Keefe started Project Veritas, Thiel gave him money for a video to prank people of color. At Stanford Thiel did the talking; now he funded others. 8/

Screenshot from timeline

9
The US alt-right was really born at the 2016 RNC. Thiel gave a public speech; his protegee Jeff Giesea quietly arranged a dinner for neo-Nazis and a “Gays for Trump” party that brought together influencers. It spun off the “MAGA3X” operation, the same crowd that pushed Jan 6. 9/

Screenshot from timeline

10
Thiel mostly stays out of sight, but pops up in the J6 timeline in small odd ways. In 2016, before the election, propagandist and troll Jack Posobiec pushed the new antisemitic typography with “Surrounded by (((them))) at Peter Thiel press conference”. 10/

Archived Tweet

11

Joe Biggs, ex-‘journalist’ turned Proud Boy who led the march to the Capitol, posted his last news clips in 2019: “Billionaire Peter Thiel makes big move into bitcoin”. His website now redirects to a Swiss-owned Brazilian newspaper with anti-vaxx, pro-Bolsonaro content. 11/

Archived site screenshot

12
While Peter Thiel is openly far-right, David Sacks has a double game going. He still donates to Republican politicians but now cultivates the far-left. He's a pretend progressive with talking points from Putin: no more aid to Ukraine. 12/

Screenshot of Sacks’ Woke War III

13

Thiel and Sacks both own social media sites now. Thiel’s Rumble is for the alt-right; it also hosts Trump’s Truth Social. (1 day after this was announced, Trump endorsed Thiel’s protege JD Vance.) Sacks’ new "Callin" is for the tankie left. 13/

Elliot Higgins Tweet: https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/1589601787396648961

Thiel has pro-Russia friends too - like Sebastian Kurz, a far-right Austrian politician who bribed his way to power, then fell in scandal. In 2021 Kurz visited Russia, said peace is only possible "with Russia, and not against it". Within months he was hired at Thiel Capital. 14/

Kurz FB page

We don't know exactly why Elon bought Twitter, but the crowd around him are not big on free speech. Thiel famously schemed to bankrupt Gawker in revenge for outing him as gay. It cost him millions of his own money. Getting Elon to destroy Twitter would be cheaper. 15/

Forbes graphic of Thiel vilifying journalists

16
Finally - in 2022 Thiel funded a candidate who was totally not his type: not male, no elite college, no long ties. That's Harriet Hageman, Liz Cheney’s opponent. Thiel wanted Cheney gone, and we can guess why. The day she lost, Elon was there in Wyoming too. 16/

Harriet Hageman picture, Elon picture

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