• - Peter Thiel invested US$15 million in J.D. Vance’s 2022 Senate campaign and nurtured his political ascent.
• - Vance, once a critic of Donald Trump, was announced as Trump’s running mate for the 2024 election.
• - Thiel, a New Zealand citizen since 2011, said he wouldn’t be making any more financial contributions to politicians this election.

Controversial Kiwi billionaire Peter Thiel injected tens of millions of dollars into the senate campaign of J.D. Vance, the man just selected as Donald Trump’s running mate in the upcoming US presidential elections.

Thiel has been officially affiliated with the Republican Party since 2017, the same year he hired the 32-year-old Vance to work at his venture capital firm.

Thiel then went on to be a major financial backer for Vance’s 2022 tilt as the Republican candidate for the Senate.

A co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies, and an early investor in Facebook, Thiel became a New Zealand citizen in 2011.

Technology entrepreneur and billionaire Peter Thiel poured millions into Vance's campaign.

According to CBS, Thiel poured US$15 million ($24.7m) into Vance’s 2022 campaign as well as nurturing his political rise. He also helped him win a closely contested seat in the GOP primary.

CBS also reported Thiel donated at least $200,000 to Vance for other campaigns.

Thiel began his official affiliation with the Republican Party in 2017, when he served on Trump’s transition team. He was an early backer of the outsider candidate.

The New York Times reported Thiel was also the one who first took Vance into Trump’s Mar-a-Lago office in 2021.

Vance told Catholic journal The Lamp Magazine that he had seen a talk Thiel had given at Yale University. He called it one of his ”most significant” moments.

Peter Thiel’s New Zealand ties

Thiel was born in Germany but moved to America when he was only a year old. He became a New Zealand citizen in 2011.

“I am happy to say categorically that I have found no other country that aligns more with my view of the future than New Zealand,” Thiel wrote.

“It would give me great pride to let it be known that I am a New Zealand citizen.”

His citizenship became a minor national scandal in 2017 when the Ombudsman revealed that the billionaire had only spent 12 days in the country, less than 1% of the usual criteria.

In 2018, during an in-depth Herald investigation into Thiel’s movements in the country, it was revealed he had essentially “ghosted” New Zealand.

Thiel declined to be interviewed for the story but issued a brief statement saying, “I believe in New Zealand”, noting that he had invested $50m in local tech companies.

He’d spoken at the Republican Convention and donated $1.5m to Trump’s campaign after the release of the infamous Access Hollywood “Grab ‘em by the pussy” tape.

Thiel has been distant during Trump’s, and now Vance’s, 2024 campaign for the presidency.

In an interview with The Atlantic in April, Thiel said he would not be making any more contributions to the politicians.

He claimed Trump called him asking for a $10m donation and when he was turned down, Trump said he was “very sad to hear that”.

Trump and Vance’s rocky history

This week, Trump revealed that 39-year-old Ohio Republican J.D. Vance was to be his running mate.

Trump and Vance have a rocky history - with Vance being a steadfast critic of Trump during his first campaign.

“I can’t stomach Trump,” Vance told NPR that August. “I’m a ‘Never Trump’ guy. I never liked him,” he told Charlie Rose in October 2016, weeks before Trump was elected President.

He had also reportedly told a former roommate that Trump was either a “cynical asshole” or “America’s Hitler”.

Rachel Maher is an Auckland-based reporter who covers breaking news. She has worked for the Herald since 2022.