Tech billionaire Peter Thiel moonlighted as an FBI informant from around 2021, according to claims set out in an exclusive news report by Business Insider.
The co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies Inc (NYSE:PLTR), a data company that has contracts with the United States government and the NHS, allegedly provided information as a “confidential human source” to an FBI agent in Los Angeles.
Palantir’s share price dropped slightly on pre-market trades from US$17.06 per share to US$16.88.
According to the report in Insider, Thiel supplied information to Johnathan Buma, an FBI agent who specialises in political corruption and foreign-influence campaigns, from 2021.
That was the year after Trump’s presidency ended when his supporters stormed Capitol Hill.
The Insider report cited a statement from Thiel’s associate Charles Johnson, who he allegedly worked with on the Trump campaign, in which his former associate reportedly claimed that he had helped to recruit Thiel as an informant, citing additional sources, one of whom said the FBI had added Thiel to a list of registered of informants.
Thiel has been a long-standing donor to the Republican party, including backing Trump’s campaign efforts in 2016.
He still owns a 10% stake in Palantir, which provides software services for government clients and recently secured a US$250 million contract with the US Army.
Among his investee companies are Facebook and American spyware company Boldend.