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Notes -
Why is Peter Thiel Moving to Argentina?
Some Irresponsible Speculation
Billionaire Investor and ideologue Peter Thiel has publicly announced that he is moving to Argentina. Among a grab bag of explanations that included nuclear war and AI risk, along with the obvious implications of the California wealth tax on his residency, Thiel reportedly was concerned about the political direction of the United States. Given Thiel's ties to much of the American political right, what does this tell us? What should our Bayesian update be from this information?
Some possibilities:
-- Get the obvious out of the way: Nothing ever happens. This is a non-event, Thiel is moving for publicity or tax reasons, and the announcements are just him engaging in punditry.
-- Alternatively, none of this may indicate anything because Thiel himself might be stupid/mistaken/prejudiced/insane.
-- Thiel is in deep with MAGA, but thinks that the wind is changing direction, the MAGA project has failed, and he doesn't want to be left holding the bag in America when the left comes back into power. This seems like a sub implication of the action even if he doesn't believe it, because his very act of fleeing and blaming the political climate will tend to reinforce the idea that MAGA has failed and increase the odds of it failing.
-- Alternatively, Thiel thinks MAGA will be triumphant, but Thiel is on the outs with The Donald, and he is concerned about being targeted after Trump turns on him. Moving to Argentina is an attempt to hedge risk.
-- Thiel is a true believer in the Argentine project, and thinks Millei-ism will succeed beyond all our wildest dreams.
It feels like something big for Thiel, who is intelligent and well informed if perhaps nuts, to make this move and publicly announce it is motivated by the state of the union.
Argentina is also on the short list of countries that will probably be 'fine' in the event of de-globalization. So establishing an existing presence there is good as a hedge even if you generally expect things to be fine.
However, I am more concerned with how much of his time he actually shifts to spending in Argentina vs. merely relocating. Theil has been mucking with U.S. politics for a while and as ever, I want our elites to have skin in the game.
If he actually believes things are going to turn sour and he pre-emptively situates himself as far from the fallout as he can feasibly get, and stays out, I would take that as a very bad sign.
Note, I don't judge the guy if he's trying to keep his kids safer or whatever, but he should be willing to face down the consequences of his political machinations along with the rest of us.
Considering he easily has the resources to make this move more surreptitiously if he wishes, I would say that him making it so public belies it being a move motivated by fear.
Certainly, which means that by making it publicly and stating that part of the reason has to do with the state of the US vs the state of Argentina, he's making a deliberate action to make that statement.
Publicly stated? What statement? The headline is based on a story from the New York Times made up of rumors taken from "people familiar with his thinking". The Times said that Theil explicitly declined to comment. All commentary about Peter Thiel making a statement (and in fairness I've seen a lot of this kind of discussion on twitter) looks totally speculative to me.
Buying a $12 million dollar mansion is tantamount to a public announcement insofar as the attention it brings, given there are methods of doing that without getting much attention to the specific owner.
He has not made a specific statement that I can see, though, so motives are purely speculative.
How do you know Thiel didn’t buy the mansion quietly? Is there anything backing up the assumption that this is intended to send a message?
I googled this and the news that he bought a mansion in Buenos Aires is at least a month old. A Real Estate & Investment consulting firm (presumably the one he used) tweeted about it in vague terms but terms that imply it is an investment:
https://x.com/buysellba/status/2047482125902073856?s=46
There is no indication I can find that supports any of the interpretations being gossiped about here or on Twitter. Peter Thiel bought a house in Buenos Aires over a month ago and this weekend the New York Times runs a story alleging to understand his motives while in fact offering several interpretations.
Even the New York Times is more measured in their reporting that what I’m seeing elsewhere: Thiel fleeing America because America is doomed! Insider bet against MAGA! Maybe he just didn’t think it was that big of a deal. He’s already a dual citizen of America and New Zealand and has properties all over the world. It just might not be that deep.
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