Ah yes, Peter Thiel. The philosopher-king of Silicon Valley who looked at democracy and decided it was an optional feature.

Thiel is a central co-founder of Palantir, because nothing says “libertarian freedom” quite like a surveillance company named after an all-seeing orb from Tolkien. He’s a billionaire venture capitalist, an early investor in Facebook, and one of the PayPal founders who helped design the financial plumbing of the digital age. He built tools that move money invisibly and harvest data efficiently, and then had the audacity to publicly muse that maybe democracy itself is the inefficiency.

He famously declared, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”

Just sit with that for a second.

A man who amassed staggering wealth inside a democratic republic now questions whether the voting public should continue having a say in how that republic functions. It’s the kind of statement that would’ve gotten you laughed out of civics class, but in Silicon Valley boardrooms, it passes for edgy intellectualism.

And then there’s the Epstein angle.

The latest batch of Department of Justice files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein shed light on Epstein’s deep ties to Silicon Valley. In those documents, Peter Thiel’s name reportedly appears at least 2,200 times. Let me be precise: appearing in documents is not proof of wrongdoing. But when your name surfaces thousands of times in files connected to one of the most notorious financial predators in modern history, it raises eyebrows, especially for someone who styles himself as a moral and civilizational critic of modern society.

The reporting also highlights something almost absurdly on-brand: Thiel’s elaborate dietary restrictions. Because of course. While the rest of us are worrying about whether democracy survives the decade, billionaires are managing micronutrients and optimizing their biological performance like they’re beta-testing immortality.

There’s something darkly poetic about it. A tech titan who questions democracy. A surveillance empire built on data extraction. Thousands of mentions in Epstein-related files. Meticulous food rituals. Apocalyptic musings about the “Antichrist.” It reads less like a biography and more like a rejected script from HBO.

But here’s the through-line: power without accountability.

When billionaires start openly theorizing that democracy and freedom are incompatible, that’s not just philosophical debate. That’s a worldview backed by capital, influence, networks, and institutions. It’s not a blog post. It’s a strategy.

And the rest of us? We’re left hoping that “freedom” in their lexicon doesn’t just mean freedom for the few, and management for the many.

—Michael Jochum, Not Just a Drummer: Reflections on Art, Politics, Dogs, and the Human Condition.