From left: Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and David O. Sacks. All images from Wikipedia.
With the ascension of Elon Musk, Peter Thiel acolyte JD Vance, Ken Howery, David O. Sacks, and other members of the so-called “PayPal Mafia,” to various official and unofficial positions within the executive branch of the new Trump administration, media attention has turned to this group of tech oligarchs in an attempt to understand what direction these men have in mind for the United States and the world.
The 20-odd alumni of PayPal have since 2002 founded, funded, or served as executives for most of the worlds biggest and most influential tech and venture capital firms — from YouTube, Facebook, SpaceX, Tesla, Lyft, Airbnb, Palantir, Pinterest, OpenAI, Reddit, Eventbrite, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Quora, Yelp, Postmates, Square, and Stripe, among others.
The PayPal Mafia, and the coalition that brought Trump back into power generally, contains a disparate set of ideological tendencies. What unites the PayPal Mafia — and the Silicon Valley faction of the new administration generally — with the Heritage Foundation-style reactionaries, and ultra-libertarian forces in the vein of Argentina’s Javier Milei is the goal of a state stripped down to its bare bones, with only one objective: maximize shareholder value.
Peter Thiel
Net Worth: $18.8 billion
- Founder of PayPal and “don” of the mafia.
- Lived in modern day Namibia (then-South West Africa, occupied by apartheid South Africa) in his adolescence, where white supremacy was so prevalent that “Heil Hitler” was a common greeting among residents
- As a student at Stanford, founded the Stanford Review to provide a reactionary platform as progressive student movements pushed for progressive demands on the university.
- Believes that women’s suffrage had “rendered the notion of a “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron”
- Founded Palantir, a software company that specializes in U.S. intelligence and U.S. Department of Defense contracts and which proudly advertises that their technology “kills people”
- Bankrolled Vice President JD Vance’s political career
- Has cultivated a cultural scene in lower Manhattan, opening the Sovereign House, a cultural event space for so-called New Right and libertarian figures
Elon Musk
Net Worth: $393.3 billion
- Owner of Tesla, SpaceX, and X (formerly Twitter), among other ventures. Claims to be the innovative founder of many of these corporations but actually just acquired the title through various legal and financial maneuvers from the actual founding individuals
- Deep financial and familial ties to South African apartheid
- Trump’s largest donor in 2024
- Grandson of Joshua N. Haldeman, Canadian supporter of Nazi Germany and South African apartheid
- Relied heavily on government loans and stimuluses as a crutch to keep Tesla and SpaceX alive. Tesla received $465 million in a federal loan to manufacture his Tesla Roadster.
David O. Sacks
Net Worth: Est. $250 million to $2 billion
- Born in apartheid South Africa and attended Stanford University
- Started career as a consultant at McKinsey.
- Became PayPal’s first COO in 1999
- His investment portfolio includes Airbnb, Eventbrite, Facebook, Palantir, PayPal, Postmates, ResearchGate, Rumble, Scribd, Slack, SpaceX, SurveyMonkey, and Uber.
- Appointed by Trump as the so-called “AI and crypto czar” for the White House, with a particular focus on the “AI arms race” with China
Ken Howery
Net Worth: $1.5 billion
- Stanford alumni, while a student was managing editor of Thiel-founded Stanford Review
- Named a “Young Global Leader” by the capitalist World Economic Forum in 2012 and currently serves on the Selection Committee for the World Economic Forum Technology Pioneers Program which connects tech startups with capitalist elites
- Ambassador to Sweden during the first Trump admin when he pressured Sweden to increase its military spending by 40%, setting the stage for the country to join NATO under the Biden administration
- Current nominee for ambassador to Denmark, which currently controls Greenland — a country Trump has signaled desire to colonize. If appointed, Howery will certainly be tasked with acquiring territory in the Arctic Circle
Reid Hoffman (honorable mention)
Net Worth: $2.5 billion
- Stanford alumni, worked at Apple before helping to found PayPal. From PayPal, went on to found LinkedIn
- Early and active proponent of cryptocurrency and AI
- Venture capitalist with a focus on AI and hyperscaling, or “Blitzscaling” as he calls it in his book on the topic.
- Founded the “Founders Fund” with Peter Thiel, a VC firm and the first investor in Palantir Technologies, Anduril Industries and SpaceX
- One of the few PayPal mafiosos loyal to the Democratic Party in 2024
- Member of the Bilderberg Group and Council on Foreign Relations, important imperialist think tanks
Alex Karp (honorable mention)
Net Worth: $8.3 billion
- Co-founder of defense contractor Palantir with Peter Thiel, who was Karp’s classmate at Stanford
- Has attacked pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses, calling their views a “pagan religion”
- “Palantir is here to disrupt and make the institutions we partner with the very best in the world and, when it’s necessary, to scare enemies and on occasion kill them,” Karp said, with a smile on his face in Feb. 2025.
- Broke with many Silicon Valley billionaires and supported Kamala Harris in 2024 Presidential Election, supports Democrats with an emphasis on their imperial agenda and war contacts they provide to Palantir
