With titles such as top Silicon Valley investor, co-founder of PayPal, cryptocurrency supporter, billionaire, and author of "Zero to One," Thiel's new identity as an FBI informant has been exposed.
Original Title: "Exclusive: Tech billionaire Peter Thiel was an FBI informant"
Written by: Mattathias Schwartz, Business Insider
Translated by: Lüdòng Xiǎogōng, BlockBeats
Over the years, Peter Thiel has held multiple identities: Silicon Valley founder, major donor to Trump, cryptocurrency supporter, and skeptic of democracy.
But Thiel also has a secret special identity - an FBI informant.
Insider has learned that in the summer of 2021, Thiel began providing information as a "Confidential Human Source" (CHS) to Johnathan Buma, an FBI agent in Los Angeles specializing in investigating political corruption and foreign influence activities.
Charles Johnson, a long-time partner of Thiel and a notorious figure in the far-right movement funded by Thiel for a decade, told Insider in a statement that he helped recruit the billionaire as an informant by introducing him to Buma.
A source familiar with Thiel's relationship with the FBI confirmed Johnson's statement, telling Insider that Johnson facilitated the relationship between Thiel and Buma. Insider confirmed through another source that the FBI has officially added Thiel to its registered informant list.
Another source close to Thiel told Insider that while they could not confirm whether Thiel is a CHS, Thiel does occasionally speak with Buma. The source said that any assistance Thiel may provide to the FBI should be understood as part of the reason for Thiel's gradual distancing from Trump and the broader MAGA movement, as this movement has strongly criticized the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies.
Regularly providing valuable information
The FBI has a large network of informants to monitor organized crime, terrorism threats, extremist organizations, and other criminal and intelligence targets. According to the FBI's "Confidential Human Source Policy Guide," these sources are not just occasional informants.
The guide states: "Confidential Human Sources have a relationship with the FBI that will forever affect their lives"; "(they) will become an 'FBI informant' or a 'former FBI informant,' and their behavior or misconduct will reflect on the FBI." Therefore, according to this policy, the process of recruiting and maintaining such sources is highly regulated and requires multiple approvals. Only those who can provide "valuable information… regularly" are granted CHS status.
In December 2016, President-elect Donald Trump shook hands with Peter Thiel at a meeting in Trump Tower. Years later, Thiel became a confidential informant for the FBI. A colleague said he was instructed not to report his interactions with Trump or other American political figures. Image source: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
As a CHS, Thiel was assigned a code and an internal serial number to track his reports. The information he provided about foreign contacts and Silicon Valley conspiracies was reviewed and "verified" by his case agent and colleagues, or cross-checked with other sources.
Thiel did not respond to multiple requests for comment. His spokesperson stopped responding after being informed that Insider was reporting on Thiel's relationship with the FBI.
The FBI's national press office and Scott Horton, Johnathan Buma's attorney, both declined to comment.
No reports on political relationships
Thiel is a citizen of Germany, the United States, and New Zealand; reportedly, as of last year, he was applying for Maltese citizenship. In 2016, he donated $1.25 million to Trump's campaign and endorsed him at the Republican National Convention. After Trump won the election, Thiel served in his transition team.
Johnson claimed to be Buma's informant as well. He told Insider that he believes Thiel's reports to the FBI mainly focused on foreign contacts and foreign governments attempting to penetrate Silicon Valley. Thiel has publicly called for an FBI investigation into Google's relationship with the Chinese government.
Johnson said that Thiel was instructed by the FBI not to report his interactions with Trump or other American political figures.
Many politicians supported by Thiel, including Trump, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, and former Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters, have publicly attacked the FBI and its leadership. In 2022, Vance's campaign and affiliated PAC received a total of $15 million in donations from Thiel, falsely claiming that the FBI illegally wiretapped Trump's phone. Vance accused the bureau of "harassing faithful Christians" and vowed to block all of Joe Biden's Justice Department nominees for prosecuting Trump. (Most of Thiel's donations occurred in early 2021, before Vance's campaign began and many of his erroneous claims during the race.)
During his time as an FBI informant, Thiel supported the campaign of current Ohio Senator JD Vance. Vance made some false and derogatory statements about the FBI. Image source: Anna Moneymaker/Getty
Masters' campaign received $20 million in support from Thiel, and he endorsed a false conspiracy theory that the January 6, 2021 riot was incited by FBI undercover agents, and accused FBI agents executing a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago of "pursuing him because they hate President Trump." (Like Vance, most of Thiel's donations to Masters occurred after Masters made his most incendiary and baseless statements late in the campaign.)
Thiel reportedly plans to remain on the sidelines during the 2024 election. Trump, Masters, and Vance did not respond to requests for comment.
Doing business with the FBI
Thiel's business interests partly rely on the FBI and other government agencies as potential sources of income. He retains a 10% stake in Palantir, a data company that has sold over a billion dollars' worth of software and related services to the federal government, including the Pentagon, CIA, NSA, and FBI. A financial analyst stated that a $250 million contract signed with the U.S. military in September provides evidence that Palantir is essentially "a government services provider." Last year, Forbes reported that Thiel also backed Boldend, a spyware company positioning itself as a competitor to the Israeli NSO Group. The FBI purchased and tested NSO's products.
(Reportedly, another entity co-founded by Thiel, Mithril Capital, became the subject of FBI scrutiny in 2019, although the investigation seemingly yielded no results. Mithril's co-founder did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The FBI did not respond to questions about Mithril.)
Johnson exposed Thiel's relationship with the FBI. He is a tech investor and far-right agitator with longstanding ties to Thiel and the network of political operatives around Trump's MAGA movement. He claims involvement in founding Clearview, a facial recognition startup, and Traitwell, a genomics company. According to Forbes, he worked with Thiel to help screen and select senior staff for Trump during the 2017 transition period.
In a lawsuit brought against the founder of Clearview, Johnson claimed to be an FBI informant. He told Insider that he recruited Thiel to serve as a CHS and introduced him to Buma, who is Johnson's FBI handler.
It is currently unclear whether Thiel is still an FBI CHS. Johnson told Insider that he believes the relationship has been severed but refused to provide detailed information; Buma wrote in a statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he was ordered to terminate contact with all sources by the end of 2022.
Johnson's relationship with Trump and Thiel is well-documented. However, he is also a self-described "prankster" with a history of spreading false information and smearing competitors. In this case, his claims were corroborated by two additional sources and partially supported by a third, who said that Thiel and Buma occasionally converse.
"Join or be crushed"
Buma appeared in August as a whistleblower, alleging that Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr suppressed his efforts to determine whether Rudy Giuliani was obstructed by Russian assets. Insider was the first news organization to report his claims.
In a statement prepared for the Senate Judiciary Committee, Buma noted that the FBI headquarters shut down his most valuable human sources, including one codenamed "Genius," who reported on far-right figures related to the planning of the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. Johnson told Insider that "Genius" is his CHS codename. Insider was able to confirm Johnson's identity as "Genius" through two additional sources. The statement did not mention Thiel.
Johnson stated in a written statement to Insider that he came forward as a CHS to support Buma's efforts as a whistleblower, with the aim of pushing for the reforms Buma believes are needed in the way the FBI handles informants. Johnson said he exposed Thiel's work as a CHS as retaliation for what he sees as misguided decisions by Founders Fund (Thiel's venture capital firm).
Johnson also told Insider that he felt betrayed because Thiel did not invest in his own startup, as he had expected Thiel to do so in exchange for introducing Buma to him. He stated that he told Thiel that by providing a window into foreign government contacts for the FBI, he could demonstrate his loyalty to the United States.
He described Thiel's motivation for working with Buma as a hedge in an environment where extravagant wealth no longer provides the security it once did. He mentioned ProPublica's report on Thiel's tax evasion and the death of Jeffrey Epstein, who arranged several meetings with Thiel.
"I told him, 'Join or be crushed,'" Johnson said.
The FBI recruiting Thiel as a CHS makes him one of the agency's most prominent assets, but he is not the only right-wing figure cooperating with the agency. Trump himself proposed helping the FBI combat organized crime in Atlantic City in the early 1980s. Truth Social, the social media company owned by Trump, quietly reported users threatening violence to the FBI, even as it sought to profit from their anger.
At least two of the rioters who stormed the Capitol on January 6 were also FBI informants, just like Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for his illegal actions at the Capitol. Tarrio reportedly provided sources to federal and local law enforcement, assisting in the prosecution of over a dozen individuals.
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