Peter Thiel, Co-Founder and Chairman of Palantir Technologies Inc., speaks at a press conference in Tokyo, Japan, on Monday, November 18, 2019.
Kiyoshi Ota | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Tech investor Peter Thiel criticized major US tech companies for being too close to China during a Tuesday performance at a Richard Nixon Foundation virtual event.
Thiel, who is a co-founder of PayPal and a member of Facebook’s board after an early investment, is an outspoken voice in the world of technology investment and is known for his unruly opinions and conservative leanings. He has backed defense contractors such as Palantir and has publicly backed former President Donald Trump’s campaign for president in 2016.
On Wednesday, the Nixon session focused on China, and he was joined by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien.
Thiel criticized Google for its artificial intelligence work with Chinese universities, in part because of conversations he claimed to have with company insiders, according to a transcript of the event reviewed by CNBC.
“Since everything in China is a civil-military merger, Google was actually working with the Chinese military, not the US military,” Thiel said. He also regretted Google ‘insiders’ telling him they were working with the Chinese because ‘they thought they might as well give the technology away the front door, because if they didn’t give it, it would be stolen anyway’.
Thiel had criticized Google earlier in 2019, saying the FBI and CIA should investigate Google and ask if it had been compromised by Chinese spies.
A Google spokesperson said at the time, “As we said before, we are not cooperating with the Chinese military.”
Thiel also said Apple is unlikely to confront China due to the massive supply chain to manufacture iPhones and other products in the country. He noted that other major tech companies such as Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft do not have as extensive business interests in the country, in some cases because the Chinese government has limited what they can do there.
He called on the US to put “a lot of pressure” and control over Apple because of the employment supply chain in the country.
Apple is probably the one that is a real problem structurally, as the entire iPhone supply chain is made from China, ”said Thiel. Apple is one that has real synergies with China. “
He also seemed to change his stance on Bitcoin during the conversation. Thiel has invested in Bitcoin companies and previously said he was “long bitcoin” and considers it the “digital equivalent of gold”.
On Tuesday, Thiel said Bitcoin is threatening the US dollar.
“While I am kind of a pro-crypto, pro-Bitcoin maximalist, I wonder if Bitcoin should also be partly considered at this point as a Chinese financial weapon against the US, where it threatens fiat money, but it mainly threatens the US. dollar, and China wants to do things to weaken it, so China’s long Bitcoin, ”said Thiel.