[6] Thiel has worked as a securities lawyer at Sullivan & Cromwell, a speechwriter for former U.S. secretary of education William Bennett, and a derivatives trader at Credit Suisse.

[30][31] After graduating from Stanford Law School, Thiel clerked for Judge James Larry Edmondson of the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.

[33] He then took a job as a derivatives trader in currency options at Credit Suisse in 1993 while also working as a speechwriter for former United States Secretary of Education William Bennett.

In the future, when we make our service available outside the U.S. and as Internet penetration continues to expand to all economic tiers of people, PayPal will give citizens worldwide more direct control over their currencies than they ever had before.

These mergers allowed PayPal to expand into the wireless phone market and transformed it into a safer and more user-friendly tool by enabling users to transfer money via a free online registration and email rather than by exchanging bank account information.

[41] Thiel used $10 million of his proceeds to create Clarium Capital Management, a global macro hedge fund focusing on directional and liquid instruments in currencies, interest rates, commodities, and equities.

[42] Thiel stated that "the big, macroeconomic idea that we had at Clarium—the idée fixe—was the peak-oil theory, which was basically that the world was running out of oil, and that there were no easy alternatives.

[61] In August 2012, immediately upon the conclusion of the early investor lock-up period, Thiel sold almost all of his remaining stake for between $19.27 and $20.69 per share, or $395.8 million, for a total of more than $1 billion.

[65] On 7 February 2022, Thiel announced he would not stand for re-election to the board of Facebook owner Meta at the 2022 annual stockholders' meeting and would leave after 17 years in order to support pro–Donald Trump candidates in the 2022 United States elections.

[68] In addition to Facebook, Thiel made early-stage investments in numerous startups (personally or through Founders Fund), including Airbnb,[24] Slide.com,[69] LinkedIn,[24] Friendster,[70] RapLeaf, Geni.com, Yammer, Yelp Inc., Spotify,[24] Powerset, Practice Fusion, MetaMed, Vator, SpaceX,[24] Palantir Technologies, IronPort, Votizen, Asana, Big Think, CapLinked, Quora, Nanotronics Imaging, Rypple, TransferWise, Stripe, Block.one,[71] and AltSchool.

[74] Also in 2017, Thiel was one of the first outside investors in Clearview AI, a facial recognition technology startup that has raised concerns in the tech world and media for its risks of weaponization.

[85][86] In May 2016, Thiel confirmed in an interview with The New York Times that he had paid $10 million in legal expenses to finance several lawsuits brought by others, including a lawsuit by Terry Bollea (Hulk Hogan) against Gawker Media for invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and infringement of personality rights after Gawker made sections of a sex tape involving Bollea public.

"[89] In response to criticism that his funding of lawsuits against Gawker could restrict the freedom of the press, Thiel cited his donations to the Committee to Protect Journalists and stated, "I refuse to believe that journalism means massive privacy violations.

[90] He highlighted his support for the Intimate Privacy Protection Act and said that athletes and business executives have the right to stay in the closet as long as they want to.

[98] Thiel is a member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group,[99] a private, annual gathering of intellectual figures, political leaders, and business executives.

[106] In 2012, Thiel donated $10,000 to Minnesotans United for All Families, in order to fight Minnesota Amendment 1[107] that proposed to ban marriage between same-sex couples there.

In 2009, it was reported that Thiel helped fund college student James O'Keefe's "Taxpayers Clearing House" video—a satirical look at the Wall Street bailout.

As of 31 January 2012, Endorse Liberty reported spending about $3.3 million promoting Paul by setting up two YouTube channels, buying ads from Google, Facebook and StumbleUpon, and building a presence on the Web.

Two of said senatorial candidates (Blake Masters (who lost his race) and later U.S. Vice President JD Vance) were also tech investors who had previously worked for Thiel.

[136][137] He gave the following reasons for his pledge: "Rapid advances in biological science foretell of a treasure trove of discoveries this century, including dramatically improved health and longevity for all.

I'm backing Dr. [Aubrey] de Grey, because I believe that his revolutionary approach to aging research will accelerate this process, allowing many people alive today to enjoy radically longer and healthier lives for themselves and their loved ones."

[22] On 15 April 2008, Thiel pledged $500,000 to the newly created non-profit Seasteading Institute,[140] directed by Patri Friedman, whose mission is "to establish permanent, autonomous ocean communities to enable experimentation and innovation with diverse social, political, and legal systems.

[22]In November 2011, the Thiel Foundation announced the creation of Breakout Labs, a grant-making program intended "to fill the funding gap that exists for innovative research outside the confines of an academic institution, large corporation, or government.

[165] He grew up in an evangelical household but, as of 2011, described his religious beliefs as "somewhat heterodox", stating: "I believe Christianity is true but I don't sort of feel a compelling need to convince other people of that.

Girard, a Catholic, explained the role of sacrifice and the scapegoat mechanism in resolving social conflict, which appealed to Thiel as it offered a basis for his Christian faith without the fundamentalism of his parents.

[19] On 30 November 2016, Thiel made the ceremonial first move in the first tiebreak game of the World Chess Championship 2016 between Sergey Karjakin and Magnus Carlsen.

[182] In a Post on Blue Sky in February 2025 Scott Benson stated that Peter, a vampire final boss of the action adventure minigame DemonTower in Night in the Woods was named after him.

[185][188][190] In 2015, Thiel purchased a 193-hectare (477-acre) estate near Wānaka, which fit the classification of "sensitive land" and required foreign buyers to obtain permission from New Zealand's Overseas Investment Office.

[193] In 1995, the Independent Institute published The Diversity Myth: Multiculturalism and the Politics of Intolerance at Stanford, which Thiel co-authored along with fellow tech entrepreneur David O. Sacks, and with a foreword by the late Emory University historian Elizabeth Fox-Genovese.

"[209] Thiel also has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss' self-help book Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers.