What’s Really Behind Peter Thiel’s Panicked Move to Argentina

The Nation

06/03/2026

On the surface, Thiel seems pretty secure here in the United States. He certainly has political influence, with various associates of his taking up positions in and around the White House, including his political protégé JD Vance in the vice presidential mansion. Meanwhile, Thiel’s tech companies, Palantir and Anduril, are gobbling up billions in multiyear government contracts.

But a close connection to the Trump regime ain’t what it used to be. Our increasingly unhinged president is falling apart before our very eyes and taking most of the Republican Party down with him. People are pissed enough at Trump’s chaotic reign that the Democrats seem poised to overcome the electoral ineptitude of the party’s leadership and rack up huge gains in November, knock on wood.

Meanwhile, and perhaps even more to the point, the billionaire backlash seems to grow stronger every day. An Economist/YouGov poll from January found that 80 percent of Americans say the rich have too much political power—including 91 percent of Democrats, 82 percent of independents, and, remarkably, 67 percent of Republicans. More than half see wealth inequality as a “very big problem” and nearly that many (46 percent) say that taxes on billionaires are “much too low.” A Harris poll from last November found that more than half of Americans see billionaires as a threat to American democracy (as well they should). More than 70 percent support a billionaire tax—and 53 percent want an actual cap on billionaire wealth, with most of them saying no one should have more than 10 billion dollars. That would slash Thiel’s wealth by about two-thirds, which is rather more of a slice than the one-time 5 percent wealth tax proposed in California, and a far more radical proposal than any politician has yet dared to advance.