Several wealthy right-wing tech bros got to hear Peter Thiel speak at SF’s Commonwealth Club Monday evening on the topic of the Antichrist, which is a funny thing to claim to know about when you’ve got all manner of Jeff Epstein connections.

There is apparently an emerging evangelical Christian movement going on in wealthiest pockets of the tech industry. This stands to reason I guess, because tech wants to control the masses, and religion has always proven an excellent way to control the masses. But as you can imagine, there’s not much “Blessed are the poor” kind of sentiment among the tech oligarchy’s new Christian converts, and there’s nothing consistent with the teachings of Jesus Christ when the aim of one’s technologies are to do big business with the Pentagon and try to deport people who are just going to church.

Though a fairly recent Vanity Fair profile has a pretty plausible explanation of why the tech elite are turning to Christianity — to get closer to investor Peter Thiel, who’s on a religion kick for some reason. (Maybe it started after that actor/model boyfriend of his allegedly took his own life two years ago?) And Peter Thiel is coming to San Francisco tonight, to give a lecture at the Commonwealth Club about who he thinks the Antichrist is.

“You are warmly invited to a series of four lectures by Peter Thiel addressing the topic of the biblical Antichrist,” according to an online invite (the four-part lecture series began Monday, and continues the next three consecutive Mondays). “Peter is a technology entrepreneur and investor who has spent much of his career writing and speaking about how his Christian faith informs his understanding of the world.”

The first lecture was sold out, and was described as “off the record.” Because obviously whatever Thiel says is going to be such wackadoodle horseshit that it would invite pretty extensive public mockery, and the billionaire class is extremely thin-skinned to any form of criticism.  

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But some people are pretty upset at the Commonwealth Club for even booking this, and about 50 protesters gathered outside the club's Embarcadero facility, where it was taking place, per the Chronicle. The Commonwealth Club counters that this is not an official club event, and they’re just renting out the facility (probably at a handsome price!). One 69-year-old protester told the paper that the subject matter of the lecture is merely "a way to steer the conversation away from Palantir and away from him personally."

How do we even make sense of Peter Thiel saying he knows who the Antichrist is? I imagine he thinks it’s some rival investor. Resident New York Times conservative Ross Douthat tried to get some answers about this, though Thiel is too awkward and tongue-tied to really even form any coherent answers.  

The best sound bite we could get out of this was from Douthat. “You’re deeply invested in Palantir, in military technology, in technologies of surveillance, in technologies of warfare and so on,” Douthat says. “It just seems to me that when you tell me a story about the Antichrist coming to power, and using the fear of technological change to sort of impose order on the world, I feel like the Antichrist would maybe be using the tools that you are building?”

Thiel can't really respond, because he is not a very articulate man. And honestly, Thiel’s religious credentials would sure seem undermined by his being interested in the blood of young people and having a fair number of Jeffrey Epstein connections. But yes, Peter Thiel now fancies himself as some sort of Bible-thumper, and maybe it shoudn't be surprising that Big Tech is looking to disrupt and monetize Christanity for the oligarchs' benefit.

Related: Peter Thiel Goes on Fox News to Accuse Google of Treason [SFist]

Image: CAMBRIDGE, CAMBRIDGESHIRE - MAY 08: Peter Thiel speaks at The Cambridge Union on May 08, 2024 in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire. (Photo by Nordin Catic/Getty Images for The Cambridge Union)

This post has been updated throughout.