Peter Thiel, co-founder and president of Palantir Technologies Inc., speaks during a press conference in Tokyo, Japan, on Monday, November 18, 2019.
Kiyoshi Ota | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Technology investor Peter Thiel criticized large U.S. technology companies for being too close to China in an appearance Tuesday at a virtual event held by the Richard Nixon Foundation.
Thiel, who co-founded PayPal and is on the Facebook board after first investing, is a frank voice in the world of technology investment, known for opposing views and conservative tendencies. He has supported defense contractors like Palantir and has publicly supported former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign as president.
On Wednesday, Nixon’s session focused on China, and was accompanied by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien.
Thiel criticized Google for its work on artificial intelligence with Chinese universities, in part because of conversations it claimed to have with company professionals, according to a transcript of the event reviewed by CNBC.
“Because everything in China is a civilian-military merger, Google was actually working with the Chinese military, not the U.S. military,” Thiel said. He’s also sad that Google’s “insiders” told him they were working with the Chinese because “they thought they could also give the technology through the front door, because if they didn’t give it, it would be stolen anyway.”
Thiel had previously criticized Google in 2019, saying the FBI and CIA should investigate Google and ask if Chinese spies had compromised it.
A Google spokesman then said: “As we said before, we are not working with the Chinese military.”
Thiel also said Apple is unlikely to face China because of its huge supply chain to make iPhones and other products in the country. He noted that other large technology companies such as Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft do not have such extensive commercial interests in the country, in some cases because the Chinese government has restricted what it can do there.
He called on the U.S. to put “a lot of pressure” and scrutiny on Apple because of its labor supply chain in the country.
“Thiel said, “Apple is probably a structurally structural problem, because the entire iPhone supply chain is made in China,” Thiel said.
He also seemed to change his position on Bitcoin during the talk. Thiel has invested in Bitcoin companies and previously said it was “long bitcoin” and considers it “the digital equivalent of gold”.
On Tuesday, Thiel said Bitcoin threatens the US dollar.
“While I am a pro-crypto and pro-Bitcoin maximalist person, I wonder if at this point Bitcoin should also be considered in part as a Chinese financial weapon against the US, where it threatens fiat money, but especially threatens the U.S. dollar and China want to do things to weaken it, so China’s long Bitcoin, ”Thiel said.