JD Vance Flirts with Antichrist

Plus: I challenged Peter Thiel on CNN—and in Argentina

The Nerd Reich book remains on the New York Times Bestseller list for a second week, and it’s #4 in business nonfiction.

Keep the momentum going—buy The Nerd Reich today at your local bookstore. Or use this Bookshop link to support this newsletter.

JD and the Devil

For years, billionaire Peter Thiel has traveled the world preaching about apocalypse and the Antichrist. Now, his most successful protégé—Vice President JD Vance—is flirting with similar themes.

During an appearance on an evangelical podcast, Vance was asked whether he thought we were living in the “end times.” From NBC News:

Vice President JD Vance warned about the dangers of artificial intelligence Tuesday and said he wouldn’t be “shocked” if we were living in the “end times” and the Antichrist was walking the Earth.

Vance made the remarks in a wide-ranging interview on faith with the popular Christian podcaster Bryce Crawford.

During the hourlong sit-down, Crawford asked Vance his perspective on whether the end times are coming — or here.

“Do I think that we’re in the end times? I don’t know, and I think that it’s probably bad for me spiritually to focus too much on it, because there are, like, things you got to do. I got to be good to my wife. I got to be good to my kids. I have to be, you know, as good of a leader as I can for the United States of America,” Vance replied.

“I think that there are, like, things about the world that make me feel, like, not shocked if the Antichrist was walking among us. But again, I try not to focus too much on it,” he said.

“While I wouldn’t be shocked if we are living in the end times, what I’m trying to focus on is doing as much of God’s work as possible right now, and if that leads to the end times, OK,” Vance said.

Vance went on to say that if his work “leads to the end times, OK, and if that leads to … us building a better world that thrives and survives for a very long time after I’m gone, that’s great, too.”

Earlier this week, Vance used the word “evil” to describe Abdul El-Sayed, a Democratic candidate running for U.S. Senate in Michigan. From the BBC:

El-Sayed hit back at Vance later on Monday, accusing the Trump administration of pushing “evil” policies and of “starting wars abroad when there’s peace.”

El-Sayed got under Vance’s skin in August when he referred to Vance as “Peter Thiel’s boy.”

Fact check: True.

Thiel Decried in Argentina

Speaking of Thiel: If the Palantir billionaire and Antichrist enthusiast was hoping to find peaceful refuge in Argentina, he’s just received a rude awakening.

Thiel has become the target of ongoing mockery and protests—so much so that he had to cancel a planned appearance at a conference there.

“Thiel was scheduled to speak at a business conference in Buenos Aires next week,” reported the Buenos Aires Times. “But he cancelled without an explanation.”

His aborted appearance comes after a flock of Gandalfs protested at his Buenos Aires mansion. In addition, members of the Argentine Congress held a special meeting to investigate Thiel’s presence in the country.

“Opposition lawmakers launched a five-hour congressional hearing Friday into Thiel’s interests in Argentina, ramping up scrutiny on the tech billionaire who has purchased a mansion in Buenos Aires and a stake in the country’s biggest oil exporter,” reported the Buenos Aires Times.

I addressed that meeting via a recorded video. My remarks emphasized Thiel’s obsession with The Sovereign Individual, an apocalyptic 1997 book that predicted technology would collapse democratic nations in the 21st century:

Venture capitalists invest in disruption. Thiel’s relocation to Argentina indicates that he thinks the country is ripe for disruption. Just as foretold in The Sovereign Individual, he sees Argentina as a place that can be exploited and colonized in the aftermath of the United States’ decline.

He is not wrong. We already see signs of this in Javier Milei’s legislation to eliminate taxes and regulations on AI, and to even allow the creation of non-human companies.

Argentina is on the front lines of a new digital colonialism.

This invasion isn’t led by foreign armies, but by stateless billionaires treating your republic as a deregulated playground. They do not bring prosperity. They come for extraction.

The Sovereign Individual specifically recommended Argentina, along with New Zealand, as destinations during the coming collapse of the nation-state world order. Thiel obtained New Zealand citizenship in 2011 and now he’s planted his roots in Argentina.

At the height of his power and influence in Washington, with his boy (JD Vance) a heartbeat away from the presidency, Thiel finds himself becoming a global target of derision, mockery, and scorn.

Where to next—Kazakhstan?