Tech billionaire and major Republican donor Peter Thiel does not plan on funding any political candidates in 2024, according to reports Wednesday.
Reuters and Bloomberg News reported Thiel is unhappy that the Republican Party is focusing its efforts on culture-war issues, such as abortion restrictions and anti-trans laws, rather than trying to keep American industry innovative and competitive with China.
Speaking at the 2016 Republican National Convention — where he endorsed Donald Trump — Thiel dismissed “fake culture wars,” saying they distracted from the real issues facing America.
“Fake culture wars only distract us from our economic decline,” Thiel, who is openly gay, said at the time. “When I was a kid, the great debate was about how to defeat the Soviet Union. And we won. Now we are told that the great debate is about who gets to use which bathroom. This is a distraction from our real problems. Who cares?”
Thiel was a major donor for Trump in 2016, and gave millions to Trump-supported candidates such as Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio and Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters last year.
A 2022 analysis by the independent, nonprofit research group OpenSecrets.org found Thiel was the sixth-largest Republican donor, with more than $35 million in federal contributions in the 2021-’22 election cycle.
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