Peter Thiel’s ‘contrarian’ election prediction came true

Thiel predicted that the 2024 election was “not going to be close” as he declined to spend money to elect Trump.

In September, conservative tech billionaire Peter Thiel made what he acknowledged was an unusual prediction about the 2024 election.

“I think the odds are slightly in favor of Trump, but it’s basically 50-50. My one contrarian view on the election is that it’s not going to be close,” Thiel said in September at an appearance at the All In Summit in Los Angeles. “You know, most presidential elections aren’t.”

Thiel, a venture capitalist who co-founded PayPal and Palantir, said that “two-thirds of elections” aren’t close, and that either Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump could handily defeat the other.

“I think either the Kamala bubble will burst, or you know, maybe the Trump voters get really demotivated and don’t show up,” Thiel said. “But I think one side is simply going to collapse in the next two months.”

Thiel’s prediction came true. Trump easily won the election and is on track to sweep all seven swing states. He also put up strong performances in some traditionally Democratic states and projected to win the popular vote, the first time a Republican has done so since 2004.

Thiel’s argument may have also been partially self-serving. At the time, he was facing a call to “get off the sidelines” from Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, a personal friend who Thiel spent millions to elect in 2022.

While Thiel said he was personally supportive of Trump this year, he had declined to spend any money on the 2024 elections, arguing that his financial contributions wouldn’t make a difference at the presidential level.

“If it’s not even close, I don’t think it makes much of a difference,” Thiel said in September.

A spokesman for Thiel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Thiel is known for being a contrarian who tends to make bets, via his business ventures and investments, that cut against the conventional wisdom.

In his book “Zero to One” — which he wrote with his protege-turned-politician Blake Masters — Thiel advises entrepreneurs to focus on building companies that do things that others aren’t doing, rather than spending energy trying to compete with existing companies.

His right-wing political views have also long been an outlier for his Silicon Valley milieu, though that may be increasingly less than case, with other tech figures like Elon Musk coming around to Trump.