Entrepreneur and Donald Trump ally Peter Thiel has said that there is not “anything heroic” about gunman Luigi Mangione, who has been charged with killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Thiel spoke with Piers Morgan, who asked about people calling Mangione a “hero.” The video, which was edited to X by Radicalized podcast journalist Jim Stewartson, has over 3.1 million views on his account.
“I still think you should try to make an argument, and I think there may be things wrong with our health care system, but you have to make an argument and you have to try to find a way to convince people and change it by that,” Thiel said. “This is not going to work. All sorts of things one can say about it … I don’t think there’s anything heroic about him.”
Newsweek reached out to Thiel through his company, Palantir Technologies.
Photo by Nordin Catic/Getty Images for The Cambridge Union/Altoona Police Department via Getty Images
Thompson was shot outside the Hilton hotel where UnitedHealthcare was holding its investor conference. A hooded attacker who appeared to have been lying in wait fled on foot to a back alley and then hopped on an ebike in the direction of Central Park.
An ambulance took Thompson to Mt. Sinai Hospital. He was in critical condition, but was declared dead at the hospital just after 7 a.m.
People in the comment section of the Thiel video on Piers Morgan Uncensored are calling out Thiel for stuttering through his response, joking that Thiel is “great under pressure.”
The original clip has over 1,600 comments, 2,100 reposts, 8,200 likes and 6,200 bookmarks on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Who is Peter Thiel?
Peter Thiel, 57, is a venture capitalist and political activist originally from West Germany. He is the cofounder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies and the Founders Fund. He was chief executive officer of PayPal until 2002, when eBay bought the platform for $1.5 billion.
Following his role with PayPal, Thiel founded Clarium Capital, which is a global hedge fund. In 2003, he also launched Palantir Technologies. He is still the chairman of the company.
Thiel launched the Founders Fund in 2005, which was the first institutional investor in SpaceX as well as Palantir Technologies. The organization also made early-stage investments in groups like Airbnb, LinkedIn, Spotify, Quora and Yelp Inc. Thiel remains a partner at the fund today. Other partners include Sean Parker, Ken Howery and Luke Nosek.
He also created Mithril Capital.
Thiel, who has an estimated net worth of $11.2 billion according to Bloomberg, was also one of the original investors in Facebook.
How is Peter Thiel Tied to Trump and Vance?
Fortune reported that Thiel is the one to credit for introducing Vice President-elect JD Vance to President-elect Donald Trump in 2021. Vance worked for Thiel at Mithril Capital. Theil and Vance had met at Yale Law School in 2011. Vance’s venture firm, Narya Capital, is also listed as an “affiliate” of Thiel’s Founders Fund.
For about 15 years, Thiel has voiced his support for national conservatism, and has criticized the ideas of economic liberal attitudes and free trade.
Thiel, who is gay and married to Matt Danzeisen, has supported conservative gay right causes like GOProud and the American Foundation for Equal Rights.
In 2007, Thiel endorsed Ron Paul for President. He also contributed to the John McCain campaign.
In 2016, Thiel made a $1.25 million donation to support former President Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign.
Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images
“I didn’t give him any money for a long time because I didn’t think it mattered, and then the campaign asked me to,” Thiel told The New York Times at the time.
After Trump won his first term in office, Thiel was named as part of Trump’s transition team.
Thiel went on to donate more to the Trump Victory Committee during the midterm elections and then again for Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign. He was one of the largest donors to Republican candidates in the 2022 midterm election campaigns with $20.4 million. One of those candidates was Vance, who Thiel donated $15 million to in his Senate bid in Ohio.
Thiel did not donate to any campaign for the 2024 election, which he told Fortune was because he no longer believed money mattered on the federal level.
In his appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored Thiel said he won’t have a “full time” role within the Trump administration this time around, saying he would become “depressed and crazy” if he spent his “whole life” on politics.
“It’s just the sort of things you have to be realistic about, what you can and can’t do,” Thiel said.
The Latest on Luigi Mangione
Luigi Mangione, 26, was arrested in Pennsylvania on Monday following a manhunt for a gunman believed to have shot dead Thompson, 50, on December 4 in Manhattan.
Mangione is being held without bail in Pennsylvania, where he is charged with possession of an unlicensed firearm, forgery and providing false identification to police. The most serious of those charges, forgery, is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
In New York, Mangione is charged with second-degree murder as well as criminal possession of a forged instrument and several counts of criminal possession of a weapon. Mangione’s lawyer has said his client will fight his extradition to New York.
According to legal experts, the extradition process could take months, though there is considerable pressure from New York prosecutors to expedite it.
The most serious charge he faces there—second-degree murder—is punishable by at least 15 years in prison, or up to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. However, prosecutors have said that the charge could be upgraded to first-degree murder if there is evidence to warrant it.
His lawyer has said he intends to plead not guilty to charges