“Build-a-Cult”
Caleb Ecarma at Oligarch Watch:
A data leak last week provided a fresh glimpse into how far-right billionaire Peter Thiel, the cofounder of Palantir and PayPal, has sought to extend his influence and cultivate the powerful. The leak unmasked the membership and attendee lists for a discreet social network cofounded by Thiel that serves as a way for wealthy tech figures to mingle with members of the political, military, and media elite. Dialog, an organization launched in the mid-2000s by Thiel and tech entrepreneur Auren Hoffman, regularly hosts off-the-record, invitation-only conferences of a kind not unlike those held by the Bohemian Club, the Bilderberg Group, and World Minds. While Dialog’s events are organized around lectures, networking at lavish and secluded resorts — including at Sundance in Utah, a Ritz-Carlton in mountainous Southern Arizona, and a luxury hotel on a private Venetian island — is the primary function.
It is unclear how many of the people named in the leak are actively involved with Dialog, how recently they attended events, or whether they were merely invited. However, the leak, which was first identified by Swiss hacktivist maia arson crimew, exposed a list of members and guests that included trillionaire Elon Musk and billionaires Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google; Reid Hoffman, the cofounder of LinkedIn; and Greg Brockman, the president of OpenAI.
Also named were numerous figures working in or around the Trump administration: “unofficial” White House advisor Jared Kushner, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, White House staff secretary Will Scharf, and National Science Foundation nominee Jim O’Neill. Elected representatives from both parties were listed as well, including Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) — and a pair of potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidates, Governor Wes Moore (D-MD) and Governor Jared Polis (D-CO). (Booker, Moore, and Polis have all denied active involvement with Dialog.) Hoffman and a representative for Thiel did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Dialog appears intent on growing its influence in Washington. Last year, Axios reported that the organization planned to open a campus in the D.C. suburbs.
Another notable name revealed in the leak was that of Air Force General Alexus Grynkewich, commander of US European Command and the second-ranking military leader in NATO. Data from the leak showed that Grynkewich has attended Dialog events since 2021. Among the media figures linked to Dialog were New York Times columnists Ezra Klein and Bret Stephens, podcaster Sam Harris, and Steven Pinker, the Harvard psychologist who assisted with Jeffrey Epstein’s legal defense following his 2006 arrest for sexually abusing underage girls. On X, Klein acknowledged attending Dialog conferences in 2018 and 2022 but claimed he was not a member and “never saw or talked to” Thiel. “I would not have described it as a secret or a society,” he wrote, before suggesting that “credulous” actors were attempting to turn the conference into “a new conspiracy theory.”
The membership list of Peter Thiel’s secret society group Dialog was exposed in a leak last week.
