Sebastian Kurz turns his back on Austria professionally. He is drawn further into the arms of a controversial personality. According to media reports, Kurz will work as a manager for the former Trump adviser Peter Thiel. What’s behind it?
The investigation against Sebastian Kurz and his supporters has not yet been completed when Austria’s ex-Chancellor went abroad. As the “Kronen Zeitung” and “Today” According to the unanimous report, the 35-year-old will in future work as a “global strategist” at the investment fund Thiel Capital. Kurz confirmed this to both papers. The press has been rumoring for weeks that Sebastian Kurz is reorienting himself professionally. The reason for this was, among other things, two trips abroad to the USA and Ireland.
According to the latest rumors, Kurz will work for the US data analyst Palantir in the future. Both companies were founded by tech investor and billionaire Peter Thiel. However, the company denied the rumors. “Sebastian Kurz will not work at Palantir”, Jan Hiesserich, Head of Strategy and Communication at Palantir in Europe, is quoted by the Austrian media. As long as the preliminary investigation continues against Kurz, an involvement in a listed company can be ruled out, reports the newspaper “Die Presse”. Employment would contravene compliance rules.
In Austria there is currently still a major trial against Kurz. The trigger was a controversial board member at Casino Austria. In the meantime, the Economic and Corruption Public Prosecutor’s Office (WKStA) is investigating two further factual complexes. On the one hand, Kurz is said to have testified wrongly before the Ibiza-U-Committee in June 2020. The ex-Chancellor is also charged with the accusation of cheating himself to the top of the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and the Republic in 2016/17. For this purpose, Kurz is said to have commissioned embellished surveys with the help of colleagues and thus influenced the reporting. This was financed with taxpayers’ money, so the allegation. Kurz rejects this to this day.
Sebastian Kurz is now tweeting in English
After Kurz had initially given up his post as Chancellor in October and took a step aside as parliamentary group and party chairman, he announced at the beginning of December that he would withdraw completely from politics. His passion decreased after the allegations against him. In addition, he was looking forward to spending time with his family and his newborn son, Kurz explained his decision. How much time he will have for the family in the end is questionable. As a manager at Thiel Capital, he will in future commute between the United States and Europe, as reported by the newspaper “Österreich”.
You could already guess from his Twitter account that Kurz is going abroad. There he had recently tweeted again and again in English – initially about his resignation, later it was Christmas wishes that Kurz put out on the social network. Rather unusual in view of the past few years, because Kurz only tweeted in English when he met with representatives from other countries, for example to thank them for the meetings. The charismatic ex-chancellor always sent Christmas wishes to the Austrian population in German.
It is also no great surprise that Kurz will be working with the Frankfurt-based investor and billionaire Peter Thiel in the future. Kurz and Thiel have known each other for several years. In 2017 the two met at the Munich Security Conference. Kurz, then Austrian Foreign Minister, thanked us on Twitter for getting to know each other and for discussing global digitization.
Peter Thiel: major donor, Trump advisor and tech giant
Peter Thiel, born in Frankfurt am Main and married to the financial expert Matt Danzeisen, is a well-known personality in Silicon Valley and not only controversial because of its political orientation. In 2016 he made a donation to support Donald Trump’s election campaign. For a short time he acted as a consultant. Thiel continues to maintain its closeness to the US Republicans – for example in the form of donations.
So with Blake Masters. The 35-year-old heads the tech company Thiel Capital and the Thiel Foundation and would like to join the Senate for the US Republicans in the coming year. According to information from the “Handelsblatt”, Thiel is said to have paid ten million US dollars into a so-called Political Action Committee (PAC) in order to secure Masters the nomination in the state of Arizona. Thiel raised a comparable sum to support Republican candidate JD Vance in Ohio. According to “Politico”, these are the largest political donations Thiel is said to have ever distributed. According to the “Handelsblatt”, Thiel is “well on the way to becoming one of the most important political pullers in the USA”.
Thiel’s actual workplace, however, is California’s Silicon Valley, where he has built up and supports numerous companies. Among other things, he is a co-founder of the data analyst company Palantir and the online payment service PayPal. He was also the investor for Facebook and is now on its board of directors. With the Founders Fund, he supports companies like SpaceX and Airbnb.
In an interview with “Time”, Peter Thiel’s journalist and biographer Max Chafkin described the tech entrepreneur as “the most important person in Silicon Valley”. At the same time, there is reason to fear the power of Thiel. In his book, Chafkin writes that Thiel was responsible for the ideology of Silicon Valley, according to which “technological progress should be driven forward incessantly, with little or no consideration for possible costs and dangers for society” – topics that two whistleblowers addressed in the fall of Group had accused Facebook.
According to Chafkin, Thiel stands for a reorganization of society in which all power comes from start-ups and billionaires. Democracy is considered out of date, and the entrepreneur propagates his libertarian way of thinking in his book “Zero to One”. “For him, monopolies are good, one-man rule is efficient and founders of high-tech companies are god-like,” says Chafkin, describing the ideology in his biography.
The Schirrmacher Foundation apparently sees it differently. She honored Thiel for his “extensive work in the analysis of the opportunities and risks of technological progress” with the Schirrmacher Prize 2021. “Regardless of the existing prohibitions on thinking”, he “set intellectual impulses” and with it “the current socio-political discussions in the most varied of areas “enriched. Sebastian Kurz was supposed to give the laudatory speech – but because of the preliminary investigation it did not come about.
Bafin bans “Thiel Capital” custody business in Germany
Thiel’s interest is not just limited to the United States. According to “standard” information, his investment companies should already be involved in a number of European companies – including the Tesla production facility near Berlin. It is conceivable that Thiel Kurz hired because of his good contacts with Eastern European governments. As a global strategist in Thiel Capital, Kurz could expand the field for Thiel.
As much as is known about Kurz’s new boss, little is known about the company for which Austria’s ex-Chancellor will work. According to information from the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (Bafin), Thiel Capital has three offices in the USA, Great Britain and Sweden. The company aims to target customers to buy stocks in order to manage them. The customers have to create the depot themselves. With this so-called deposit business, Thiel Capital had a negative impact on Bafin. In order to be able to carry out such transactions in Germany, a permit is required, which Thiel Capital does not have, according to the Bafin. The company therefore “acts illegally”. In the spring, the Bafin therefore ordered that the depot business be stopped immediately.
The contradicting information about the company itself is also dubious. According to Bafin, there is no evidence that there is a connection between Peter Thiel and the company Thiel Capital. The links to the company’s website (thiel-capital.com and thiel-capitals.com) named by Bafin are also not available. With a pure internet research you quickly end up on a page – which however does not contain the desired information. On the side only the name “Thiel” is emblazoned in large black letters on a white background. Otherwise the page is empty – corporate advertising, imprint, nil.
You will find what you are looking for on the professional network LinkedIn. It says that Thiel Capital is a private company owned by Peter Thiel based in West Hollywood. The company on Sunset Boulevard employs between 11 and 50 people, according to information stored on LinkedIn. Related companies include Founders Fund, Valar Ventures and The Thiel Foundation called – companies founded by Peter Thiel.
According to media reports, Sebastian Kurz will start his new position as Global Strategist at Thiel Capital in the first quarter of the new year. Until then, the youngest former chancellor wants to enjoy time with his family.
Sources: “Kronen Zeitung”, “Today”, “The standard”, “Handelsblatt”, “The press”, “Turi2”, Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, Time, Schirrmacher Foundation, Netzpolitik.org