Elon Musk, and Peter Theil are influenced by a guy named Curtis Yarvin who wants to turn Homeless people into Biodiesel
Tom Jigme Wheat
In 2008, a software developer in San Francisco named Curtis Yarvin, writing under a pseudonym, proposed a horrific solution for people he deemed “not productive”: “convert them into biodiesel, which can help power the Muni buses.”
Yarvin, a self-described reactionary and extremist who was 35 years old at the time, clarified that he was “just kidding.” But then he continued, “The trouble with the biodiesel solution is that no one would want to live in a city whose public transportation was fueled, even just partly, by the distilled remains of its late underclass. However, it helps us describe the problem we are trying to solve. Our goal, in short, is a humane alternative to genocide.”
He then concluded that the “best humane alternative to genocide” is to “virtualize” these people: Imprison them in “permanent solitary confinement” where, to avoid making them insane, they would be connected to an “immersive virtual-reality interface” so they could “experience a rich, fulfilling life in a completely imaginary world.”
Yarvin’s disturbing manifestos have earned him influential followers, chief among them: tech billionaire Peter Thiel and his onetime Silicon Valley protégé Senator J.D. Vance, whom the Republican Party just nominated to be Donald Trump’s vice president. If Trump wins the election, there is little doubt that Vance will bring Yarvin’s twisted techno-authoritarianism to the White House, and one can imagine—with horror—what a receptive would-be autocrat like Trump might do with those ideas.
Trump’s first campaign was undoubtedly a watershed moment for authoritarianism in American politics, but some thinkers on the right had been laying the groundwork for years, hoping for someone to mainstream their ideas. Yarvin was one of them. Way back in 2012, in a speech on “How to Reboot the US Government,” he said, “If Americans want to change their government, they’re going to have to get over their dictator phobia.” He had also written favorably of slavery and white nationalists in the late 2000s (though he has stated that he is not a white nationalist himself).
Both Thiel and Vance are friends of Yarvin. In The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley’s Pursuit of Power, reporter Max Chafkin describes Yarvin as the “house political philosopher” of the “Thielverse,” a term for the people in Thiel’s orbit. In 2013, Thiel invested in Tlön, a software startup co-founded by Yarvin. In 2016, Yarvin attended Thiel’s election night party in San Francisco where, according to Chafkin, champagne flowed once it became clear that Thiel’s investment in Donald Trump would pay off.
Since entering politics, Vance has publicly praised—and parroted—Yarvin’s ideas. That was worrying enough when Vance was only a senator. Now that he could soon be a heartbeat away from the presidency, his close ties to Yarvin are more alarming than ever. Superficial analyses of why certain tech billionaires are aligning with Trump tend to fixate on issues like taxes and regulations, but that’s only part of the story. Tech plutocrats like Thiel and Elon Musk already have money. Now they want power—as much as money can buy.
Stories about Vance tend to focus on his hardscrabble Ohio roots, but his relationship with Thiel—and his stint in San Francisco—are key to understanding his politics. Vance owes his meteoric rise to Thiel, who largely bankrolled it. As a Yale Law student in 2011, he heard Thiel give a speech in which he suggested that smart people should be working in tech instead of wasting their time at elite schools. Afterward, Vance emailed Thiel, who invited him to California.
Following a brief stint as a lawyer, Vance moved to San Francisco. Eventually, he landed at Mithril Capital, a company co-founded by Thiel. He finished writing Hillbilly Elegy while there, and Thiel wrote a blurb praising it. When Vance moved back to Ohio and eventually started his own fund, Narya Capital, both Thiel and Marc Andreessen invested. When Vance ran for U.S. Senate in 2022, Thiel spent an unprecedented $15 million on the campaign and persuaded Trump to endorse him (Vance had previously compared Trump to Hitler). In 2024, Thiel led the charge to convince Trump to pick Vance as V.P.
Vance is a Thiel creation. And like his billionaire benefactor—who once wrote, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible”—Vance embraces a radical ideology hell-bent on destroying government as we know it. And they got these ideas, at least in part, from Yarvin.
Yarvin is the chief thinker behind an obscure but increasingly influential far-right neoreaction, or NRx, movement, that some call the “Dark Enlightenment.” Among other things, it openly promotes dictatorships as superior to democracies and views nations like the United States as outdated software systems. Yarvin seeks to reengineer governments by breaking them up into smaller entities called “patchworks,” which would be controlled by tech corporations.
“The basic idea of Patchwork is that, as the crappy governments we inherited from history are smashed, they should be replaced by a global spiderweb of tens, even hundreds, of thousands of sovereign and independent mini-countries, each governed by its own joint-stock corporation without regard to the residents’ opinions,” he wrote in Patchwork: A Political System for the 21st Century.
Each patchwork would be ruled by a “realm”: a corporation with absolute power. Citizens would be free to move, but every other realm would also be ruled by corporate governments with chilling impunity. For example, Yarvin says the tech overlords of the San Francisco realm could arbitrarily decide to cut off its citizens’ hands with no fear of legal consequences—because they’re a sovereign power, beholden to no federal government or laws.
The realm, having sovereign power, can compel the resident to comply with all promises. Since San Francisco is not an Islamic state, it does not ask its residents to agree that their hand will be cut off if they steal. But it could. And San Francisco, likewise, can promise not to cut off its residents’ hands until it is blue in the face—but, since it is a sovereign state, no one can enforce this promise against it.
In “Friscorp,” as Yarvin calls the San Francisco realm, an all-seeing Orwellian surveillance system would enforce public safety: “All residents, even temporary visitors, carry an ID card with RFID response. All are genotyped and iris-scanned. Public places and transportation systems track everyone. Security cameras are ubiquitous. Every car knows where it is, and who is sitting in it, and tells the authorities both.”
Vance has not advocated for realms—yet—but some of his most extreme ideas echo Yarvin. They’re both fond of political purges, for instance. In a 2021 podcast interview, Vance was asked how to get liberals out of government institutions. “De-Nazification, De-Baathification,” he replied. “I tend to think that we should seize the institutions of the left. And turn them against the left. We need like a de-Baathification program, a de-woke-ification program.”
He predicted Trump would run again and win, then offered some advice: “I think that what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.” He added that Trump should defy any court orders that tried to halt this partisan purge of the civil service.
Yarvin calls this plan RAGE: Retire All Government Employees. It’s captured perfectly in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a second Trump administration, which calls for firing an estimated 500,000 federal employees and dismantling entire agencies. If Trump wins, Vance may well be in charge of executing the plan.
Vance did not get this extremist ideology from his Appalachian upbringing or—needless to say—Yale Law. It was incubated in America’s tech capital, San Francisco, where he forged crucial ties with Thiel, Yarvin, and David Sacks, the longtime Thiel associate and pro-Putin crusader who recently hosted a Trump fundraiser at his mansion in Pacific Heights. And if Vance ends up in the White House, it will be with $45 million in monthly campaign contributions from Musk, who already made a $44 billion in-kind contribution by gutting San Francisco-based Twitter and transforming it into a right-wing misinformation weapon.
In a fateful twist, San Francisco also launched the political career of Kamala Harris, who is set to inherit the task of saving American democracy from tech authoritarianism.
Gil Duran is a San Francisco journalist who previously served as editorial
Tom Jigme Wheat
Tom Jigme Wheat
Tom Jigme Wheat
Tom Jigme Wheat
Republican megadonor Peter Thiel’s firm struck an investment deal with Jeffrey Epstein that has netted the accused sex trafficker’s estate $130 million, making it its largest remaining asset.
Years before Epstein committed suicide in 2019, he invested $40 million into a pair of funds managed by Valar Ventures, a firm that was co-founded by Thiel, The New York Times reported Wednesday. His investment has since grown to be worth $170 million.
Those investments, made in 2015 and 2016, remained a secret until the Times report. They shed additional light on the relationship between Thiel, the Palantir Technologies co-founder who has become one of the U.S.’s most influential conservatives, and Epstein, who is one of the country’s most notorious figures.
Reports revealing meetings between Epstein and Thiel first emerged in 2023, but the extent of their relationship remained murky. The Daily Beast uncovered emails that showed Thiel and Epstein were scheduled to have multiple meetings in 2014, including a dinner between the two men and Woody Allen.
Epstein, in addition to being a registered sex offender since 2008, was known in elite circles as a socialite and financier. He is believed to have made his millions by charging hefty fees for providing tax and estate services to billionaires.
It was rare for Epstein to make investments, The Times reported, but he chose to do so with Thiel and Valar Ventures, which specializes in providing start-up capital.
Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, has been a Republican megadonor in recent elections.Marco Bello/GettyThiel, 57, did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast. Forbes reports he is worth $20.8 billion, making him about the 100th richest person in the world.
Aaron Curtis, a spokesperson for Valar Ventures, said that a firm representative met with Epstein in 2014 because he was considered a “well-known adviser to world leaders, top universities, and philanthropic organizations.”
Curtis told The Times that the firm “hopes that the eventual distribution of these investments can be put to positive use by helping victims move forward with their lives.”
President Donald Trump speaks in 2016 with Peter Thiel, left, and Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook, right, behind him.Shannon Stapleton/REUTERSEpstein committed suicide while awaiting trial in a Manhattan detention facility on federal sex-trafficking charges. Much of his wealth was dispersed to his roughly 200 victims as restitution, with totals ranging from $500,000 to $2 million per victim. Those trafficked or abused by Epstein are unlikely to be given any additional money from the Valar Ventures investment, The Times reports.
Rather, the money is “more likely” to be distributed to one of Epstein’s ex-girlfriends, along with “two of his long-term advisers, who have been named the beneficiaries of his estate,” according to The Times.
The Valar Ventures investment makes up the vast majority of the remaining value in Epstein’s estate. The estate is worth approximately $200 million in total, down from the $600 million he had in assets at the time of his arrest.
Jeffrey Epstein's mugshot in 2019.Kypros/Kypros/GettyThe $170 million investment is still “locked up,” according to The Times, meaning the funds cannot be paid out in cash. This is likely because Valar Ventures is a venture capital firm, and investments of that nature are typically imposed extended lock-up periods to allow the companies being funded to grow.
Epstein’s suicide has been subject to many conspiracy theories, particularly from the right. Thiel addressed some of these theories himself in a Financial Times op-ed in January, in which he described Epstein as a “child sex offender.” In August, he went full tinfoil hat on Epstein’s death while talking to podcaster Joe Rogan, suggesting Bill and Melinda Gates may have had something to do with it.
FBI Director Kash Patel, who President Donald Trump appointed this year, reaffirmed in May that all evidence points to Epstein dying by suicide.
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Tom Jigme Wheat
Tom Jigme Wheat
When Bill and Melinda French Gates created the Gates Foundation in 2000, they had planned for the organization to continue its work, using their remaining fortune, for several decades after they died. But now, the billionaire Microsoft founder says he doesn’t want to wait that long to give away most of his wealth.
Gates announced on Thursday that he now plans to distribute “virtually all” of his wealth — around $200 billion, he estimates — within the next 20 years, before shuttering the foundation on December 31, 2045.
The announcement comes as President Donald Trump’s administration is working to slash funding for health, foreign aid and other public assistance programs — the types of causes the Gates Foundation supports — raising concerns about stalled progress on research and other crucial projects.
Gates wants to accelerate the foundation’s work on global health and equity initiatives and hopes the move will set a model for other billionaires, he said in a blog post published Thursday morning. The pledge builds on Gates’ track record of promoting philanthropy. He, along with ex-wife French Gates and Warren Buffett, launched the Giving Pledge in 2010 to encourage wealthy individuals to donate most of their fortunes to charitable causes either during their lifetimes or in their wills. It now has more than 240 signatories.
“People will say a lot of things about me when I die, but I am determined that ‘he died rich’ will not be one of them,” Gates, who turns 70 later this year, wrote. “There are too many urgent problems to solve for me to hold onto resources that could be used to help people.”
The Gates Foundation, one of the world’s largest philanthropies, has already given away more than $100 billion since its founding, including to develop new vaccines, diagnostic tools and treatment delivery mechanisms to fight disease around the world. Gates has increased the pace of his giving in recent years, especially following the pandemic, but Thursday’s announcement marks a dramatic acceleration in the mobilization of his wealth. The Gates Foundation called it the “largest philanthropic commitment in modern history.”
Over the next 20 years, the Gates Foundation will focus on three main goals: ending preventable deaths of moms and babies, eradicating deadly infectious diseases and lifting hundreds of millions of people around the world out of poverty.
In its announcement, the foundation raised concerns about what it described as stagnant global health trends. And in an interview with the Financial Times published Thursday, Gates accused fellow billionaire Elon Musk of “killing the world’s poorest children” because of his work at the Department of Government Efficiency cutting US international aid programs. In an event in New York on Thursday announcing the commitment, Gates said he met with Trump in February to express his concerns, in particular, about cuts to USAID.
During that event — attended by billionaire Mike Bloomberg, singer Jon Batiste and other philanthropic partners — Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman said the world is in a moment “where we are facing, literally, the toughest political and economic headwinds to our agenda since we were established.” He added that “much of (our) amazing progress is at risk.”
However, in his blog post Thursday, Gates expressed optimism that advancements in artificial intelligence, in combination with his giving, could increase the rate of progress.
Gates’ current net worth is $108 billion; Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index ranks him as the fifth wealthiest person in the world. Now, he said his net worth will fall 99% by 2045. The $200 billion he expects to give away through the foundation over the next 20 years will come from its existing $77 billion endowment and his personal wealth, including any earnings from ongoing business investments such as TerraPower, the nuclear power company he founded,
French Gates exited the Gates Foundation last year following the couple’s high-profile divorce in 2021. She said in 2022 that she would not give away the bulk of her wealth through the Gates Foundation.
The announcement comes weeks after Microsoft, now worth more than $3 trillion, marked 50 years since it was founded by Gates. “It feels right that I celebrate the milestone by committing to give away the resources I earned through the company,” he wrote.
discussion thread on #BlueSky here
https://bsky.app/profile/thomaswheat1975.bsky.social/post/3lqtb6icrq22b
Like I said Peter Theil is a tin foil hat wearing lying weasel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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When Bill and Melinda French Gates created the Gates Foundation in 2000, they had planned for the organization to continue its work, using their remaining fortune, for several decades after they died. But now, the billionaire Microsoft founder says he doesn’t want to wait that long to give away most of his wealth.
Gates announced on Thursday that he now plans to distribute “virtually all” of his wealth — around $200 billion, he estimates — within the next 20 years, before shuttering the foundation on December 31, 2045.
The announcement comes as President Donald Trump’s administration is working to slash funding for health, foreign aid and other public assistance programs — the types of causes the Gates Foundation supports — raising concerns about stalled progress on research and other crucial projects.
Gates wants to accelerate the foundation’s work on global health and equity initiatives and hopes the move will set a model for other billionaires, he said in a blog post published Thursday morning. The pledge builds on Gates’ track record of promoting philanthropy. He, along with ex-wife French Gates and Warren Buffett, launched the Giving Pledge in 2010 to encourage wealthy individuals to donate most of their fortunes to charitable causes either during their lifetimes or in their wills. It now has more than 240 signatories.
“People will say a lot of things about me when I die, but I am determined that ‘he died rich’ will not be one of them,” Gates, who turns 70 later this year, wrote. “There are too many urgent problems to solve for me to hold onto resources that could be used to help people.”
The Gates Foundation, one of the world’s largest philanthropies, has already given away more than $100 billion since its founding, including to develop new vaccines, diagnostic tools and treatment delivery mechanisms to fight disease around the world. Gates has increased the pace of his giving in recent years, especially following the pandemic, but Thursday’s announcement marks a dramatic acceleration in the mobilization of his wealth. The Gates Foundation called it the “largest philanthropic commitment in modern history.”
Over the next 20 years, the Gates Foundation will focus on three main goals: ending preventable deaths of moms and babies, eradicating deadly infectious diseases and lifting hundreds of millions of people around the world out of poverty.
In its announcement, the foundation raised concerns about what it described as stagnant global health trends. And in an interview with the Financial Times published Thursday, Gates accused fellow billionaire Elon Musk of “killing the world’s poorest children” because of his work at the Department of Government Efficiency cutting US international aid programs. In an event in New York on Thursday announcing the commitment, Gates said he met with Trump in February to express his concerns, in particular, about cuts to USAID.
During that event — attended by billionaire Mike Bloomberg, singer Jon Batiste and other philanthropic partners — Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman said the world is in a moment “where we are facing, literally, the toughest political and economic headwinds to our agenda since we were established.” He added that “much of (our) amazing progress is at risk.”
However, in his blog post Thursday, Gates expressed optimism that advancements in artificial intelligence, in combination with his giving, could increase the rate of progress.
Gates’ current net worth is $108 billion; Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index ranks him as the fifth wealthiest person in the world. Now, he said his net worth will fall 99% by 2045. The $200 billion he expects to give away through the foundation over the next 20 years will come from its existing $77 billion endowment and his personal wealth, including any earnings from ongoing business investments such as TerraPower, the nuclear power company he founded,
French Gates exited the Gates Foundation last year following the couple’s high-profile divorce in 2021. She said in 2022 that she would not give away the bulk of her wealth through the Gates Foundation.
The announcement comes weeks after Microsoft, now worth more than $3 trillion, marked 50 years since it was founded by Gates. “It feels right that I celebrate the milestone by committing to give away the resources I earned through the company,” he wrote.
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When Bill and Melinda French Gates created the Gates Foundation in 2000, they had planned for the organization to continue its work, using their remaining fortune, for several decades after they died. But now, the billionaire Microsoft founder says he doesn’t want to wait that long to give away most of his wealth.
Gates announced on Thursday that he now plans to distribute “virtually all” of his wealth — around $200 billion, he estimates — within the next 20 years, before shuttering the foundation on December 31, 2045.
The announcement comes as President Donald Trump’s administration is working to slash funding for health, foreign aid and other public assistance programs — the types of causes the Gates Foundation supports — raising concerns about stalled progress on research and other crucial projects.
Gates wants to accelerate the foundation’s work on global health and equity initiatives and hopes the move will set a model for other billionaires, he said in a blog post published Thursday morning. The pledge builds on Gates’ track record of promoting philanthropy. He, along with ex-wife French Gates and Warren Buffett, launched the Giving Pledge in 2010 to encourage wealthy individuals to donate most of their fortunes to charitable causes either during their lifetimes or in their wills. It now has more than 240 signatories.
“People will say a lot of things about me when I die, but I am determined that ‘he died rich’ will not be one of them,” Gates, who turns 70 later this year, wrote. “There are too many urgent problems to solve for me to hold onto resources that could be used to help people.”
The Gates Foundation, one of the world’s largest philanthropies, has already given away more than $100 billion since its founding, including to develop new vaccines, diagnostic tools and treatment delivery mechanisms to fight disease around the world. Gates has increased the pace of his giving in recent years, especially following the pandemic, but Thursday’s announcement marks a dramatic acceleration in the mobilization of his wealth. The Gates Foundation called it the “largest philanthropic commitment in modern history.”
Over the next 20 years, the Gates Foundation will focus on three main goals: ending preventable deaths of moms and babies, eradicating deadly infectious diseases and lifting hundreds of millions of people around the world out of poverty.
In its announcement, the foundation raised concerns about what it described as stagnant global health trends. And in an interview with the Financial Times published Thursday, Gates accused fellow billionaire Elon Musk of “killing the world’s poorest children” because of his work at the Department of Government Efficiency cutting US international aid programs. In an event in New York on Thursday announcing the commitment, Gates said he met with Trump in February to express his concerns, in particular, about cuts to USAID.
During that event — attended by billionaire Mike Bloomberg, singer Jon Batiste and other philanthropic partners — Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman said the world is in a moment “where we are facing, literally, the toughest political and economic headwinds to our agenda since we were established.” He added that “much of (our) amazing progress is at risk.”
However, in his blog post Thursday, Gates expressed optimism that advancements in artificial intelligence, in combination with his giving, could increase the rate of progress.
Gates’ current net worth is $108 billion; Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index ranks him as the fifth wealthiest person in the world. Now, he said his net worth will fall 99% by 2045. The $200 billion he expects to give away through the foundation over the next 20 years will come from its existing $77 billion endowment and his personal wealth, including any earnings from ongoing business investments such as TerraPower, the nuclear power company he founded,
French Gates exited the Gates Foundation last year following the couple’s high-profile divorce in 2021. She said in 2022 that she would not give away the bulk of her wealth through the Gates Foundation.
The announcement comes weeks after Microsoft, now worth more than $3 trillion, marked 50 years since it was founded by Gates. “It feels right that I celebrate the milestone by committing to give away the resources I earned through the company,” he wrote.
142 commentsMost stock quote data provided by BATS. US market indices are shown in real time, except for the S&P 500 which is refreshed every two minutes. All times are ET. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor’s and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor’s Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices Copyright S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and/or its affiliates. Fair value provided by IndexArb.com. Market holidays and trading hours provided by Copp Clark Limited.
Terms of UsePrivacy PolicyDo Not Sell Or Share My Personal InformationAd ChoicesAccessibility & CCAboutSubscribeNewslettersTranscriptsHelp Center© 2025 Cable News Network. A Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All Rights Reserved.
CNN Sans ™ & © 2016 Cable News Network.