Watch Out for Peter Thiel in 2028

The billionaire is short on cash, but still sitting on a war chest he has 4 years to unlock

For the uninitiated, billionaire patron of the new right has said he won’t be spending any money on candidates in 2024, presidential or congressional. After blowing more than $30 million on two senate candidates in 2022, his hopes of securing a strong position in the GOP were generally quashed with the underperformance of one candidate, and the near total collapse of the other. Thiel has also cited Trump as an issue, along with the culture war focus of the current GOP that no doubt makes Thiel, an out gay man who recently adopted a child, somewhat uncomfortable, if not at least uncertain.

The thing is, none of these things inherently limit Thiel’s ability to exercise political influence, it might be harder and his heart might not be in it, but the checks still cash. Well, kinda. Peter Thiel is a multi-billionaire, but it was revealed in 2021 that the majority of those billions are stored in a tax exempt Roth IRA. What this means is that Thiel won’t be able to access most of his fortune until April 2027, six months before his 60th birthday.

While his net worth is hard to pin down exactly, currently Forbes’ profile puts him at $6.6 billion, while Bloomberg has him at $9.33 billion, albeit with a two star rating on how accurate they think their reporting is. ProPublica, who wrote the initial exposé, valued Thiel’s Roth IRA at $5 billion in 2020 based on tax records. Either way you slice it, half of Thiel’s money is currently in suspended animation.

We also know that Thiel spent about $35 million on candidates in 2022. Seemingly a measly sum even in comparison to the money he doesn’t have in his Roth IRA, but for an investor like Thiel, it’s more than pocket change. To throw down that amount of cash, Thiel would have to use existing reserves or borrow against his portfolio, a portfolio that was steadily declining in value throughout 2022. If we look at the more conservative Forbes estimate, there were times when Thiel’s effective fortune was in the hundreds, or even tens of millions of dollars. While still substantial, Thiel had a lot less to spend on politics than his fortune might initially suggest. After spending so much in 2022, 2024 wasn’t going to ever be an election Thiel could be involved in financially.

With all that being said, Thiel will be able to start using most of his fortune right when donations will start pouring into Super-PACS ahead of the 2028 election. With Trump either having embarrassed himself once again, or being term limited, the field will be wide open. The real question remains, who will Thiel pick?