The Guardian and the Washington Post separately reported on recordings from a four-part invitation-only lecture series Peter Thiel gave in San Francisco in September and early October 2025, organized by the ACTS 17 Collective. Thiel used the sessions to map contemporary politics, international institutions and technology debates onto a reading of the Antichrist narrative, arguing that global governance, environmentalism and efforts to slow emerging technologies could empower such a figure, and describing prominent technology critics in those terms.
Thiel’s spokesperson did not dispute the accuracy of the recordings. Thiel had addressed the theme publicly before, including in university lectures and podcast appearances, and continued to do so afterwards: in March 2026 he delivered the lectures in Rome, drawing responses from a Vatican adviser on artificial intelligence ethics and from Italian legislators.