WSJ: Peter Thiel Leaves Silicon Valley ‘One-Party State’

Billionaire venture capitalist and noted conservative Peter Thiel is leaving Silicon Valley for Los Angeles, according to the Wall Street Journal, amidst a continuing backlash against his support of President Donald Trump.

The Journal reports Thursday:

Billionaire investor Peter Thiel is relocating his home and personal investment firms to Los Angeles from San Francisco and scaling back his involvement in the tech industry, people familiar with his thinking said, marking a rupture between Silicon Valley and its most prominent conservative.

Mr. Thiel has also discussed with people close to him the possibility of resigning from the board of Facebook Inc., FB -0.38% the people familiar with his thinking said. His relationship with the social-networking company—where he has been a director since 2005, the year after its founding—came under strain after a dispute with a fellow director over Mr. Thiel’s support for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, and a related confrontation over boardroom leaks with Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg last summer, the people said.​

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Mr. Thiel has grown more disaffected by what he sees as the intolerant, left-leaning politics of the San Francisco Bay Area, and increasingly pessimistic about the prospects for tech businesses amid greater risk of regulation, they said.

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“Silicon Valley is a one-party state,” Mr. Thiel said last month at a debate about tech and politics at Stanford University. “That’s when you get in trouble politically in our society, when you’re all in one side.”

Thiel already owns property in the L.A. area and plans to remain involved in his businesses, which are relocating with him. He spoke at the 2016 Republican National Convention, declaring: “I am proud to be gay. I am proud to be a Republican. But most of all I am proud to be an American.”

One other Silicon Valley billionaire and fellow PayPal alumnus already makes his home in L.A.: Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named to Forward’s 50 “most influential” Jews in 2017. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.