Peter Thiel, one of Donald Trump’s rare Silicon Valley supporters, is the latest in line to offer the president-elect his congratulations.
“Congratulations to president-elect Donald Trump. He has an awesomely difficult task, since it is long past time for us to face up to our country’s problems,” the billionaire and venture capitalist first told CNBC. Thiel also serves on Facebook’s (FB) board of directors and is the co-founder of PayPal (PYPL).
Thiel first announced his support for Trump in May, which, at first, came as a surprise: Trump has taken issue with Silicon Valley and some of its top execs since the start of his campaign, from calling Amazon’s Jeff Bezos a scammer, saying Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is discriminatory, and arguing Apple (AAPL) is unpatriotic.
On the flip side, however, most of the rhetoric among Silicon Valley’s top execs has been anti-Trump, CNBC notes. This leaves Thiel relatively alone in his support for Trump.
But Trump isn’t the first GOP candidate Thiel, who’s a Libertarian, has supported. He endorsed Mitt Romney in 2012, and donated a whopping $2 million to Carly Fiorina’s super PAC. This year, Thiel reportedly spent over $1 million backing the now president-elect, according to CNBC. He also addressed the Republican National Convention in July.
