Peter Thiel: Pope Leo XIV is a Chinese Communist Agent

Billionaire technology investor Peter Thiel has accused Pope Leo XIV of acting as an agent for the Chinese Communist Party during a festival on Tuesday.

Speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado, the Palantir co-founder claimed the pontiff’s recent push for global artificial intelligence oversight directly undermines U.S. strategic interests.

The remarks centered on a papal encyclical released in May titled “Magnifica Humanitas.”

In the document, the Vatican declared that global AI development must be effectively disarmed and subjected to strict international regulation.

Thiel argued this directive inadvertently serves Beijing. He noted that while American citizens might heed the Vatican’s moral guidance, Chinese leadership will ignore the framework entirely.

Such a dynamic exclusively restricts the U.S. side of the bilateral AI arms race.

He concluded that this asymmetry effectively means the pope is working for Chinese communists, a characterization that drew laughter from the Colorado audience.

The Vatican declined to comment on the allegations.

Rome Friction and Global Governance

Tensions between the technology executive and the Holy See precede the Aspen panel. Thiel hosted a private, invitation-only lecture series in Rome this past March, focusing on the concept of the Antichrist.

These events, held in close proximity to the Vatican, reportedly unsettled Catholic officials.

Two regional Catholic universities subsequently issued public statements denying any involvement in the programming.

During those lectures, Thiel theorized that the Antichrist could emerge as a centralized world government.

He suggested such a regime would seize absolute authority under the pretext of mitigating existential threats like climate change or unchecked AI.

Institutional Stagnation and Political Shifts

Beyond the Vatican, Thiel used the Aspen panel to outline a stark view of Western institutional decay. Sitting alongside political scientist Francis Fukuyama, he rejected the premise that liberal democracy remains an enduring endpoint for governance.

Thiel argued that democratic institutions now function as engines of systemic paralysis. He explicitly warned of a looming socialist shift within U.S. politics.

A democratic-socialist takeover of the Democratic Party is inevitable, Thiel stated. He pointed to recent primary victories and the mayoral election of Zohran Mamdani in New York City as evidence of this accelerating trend.

The Republican Party currently lacks relevance in this broader structural shift, according to the investor. He asserted that the collapse of the Democratic Party would signal the end of the country.

Defense Contracting and Corporate Power

The investor also sought to distance his software firm, Palantir, from the federal security apparatus.

The company maintains multibillion-dollar contracts with the Pentagon and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Despite these state ties, Thiel insisted Palantir does not operate as an arm of the U.S. deep state. He noted that neither he nor Palantir chief executive Alex Karp holds government security clearances.

The distribution of influence among private technology firms remains a critical advantage for the U.S., Thiel argued.

He contrasted this model favorably against highly centralized power structures found in Russia or historical Rome.

However, Thiel offered an unsupported claim that rival AI firm Anthropic plans to manipulate the 2028 U.S. elections in favor of Democrats.

He stated the company possesses superior models capable of outmaneuvering parallel ideological efforts by Elon Musk on the X platform.

Anthropic declined to address the allegation directly, referencing past corporate literature on election integrity.

European Bureaucracy and State Control

Expanding his critique of state authority, Thiel characterized the European Union as a stagnant bureaucracy dictated by rigid rules.

He compared the bloc's governance framework to defective artificial intelligence.

European citizens operate under this system as non-player characters with no independent decision-making authority, he claimed.

Thiel then contrasted European governance with his interpretation of U.S. constitutional design.

He argued that the American Revolution primarily targeted the totalitarian control exercised by the British Parliament rather than King George III.

Concluding his remarks, Thiel defended the origins of Palantir’s corporate branding, which is drawn from J.R.R. Tolkien’s literature.

He rejected critiques that the eponymous seeing stones were solely tools of manipulation by the antagonist Sauron, noting they were ultimately leveraged by the story's heroes to force fatal strategic errors.