# Peter Thiel Political Donations Cycle-by-cycle ledger of [[Peter Thiel]]'s federal and state political giving — the consolidated money map. This is the **structured ledger**; the chronological narrative lives in [[Thiel Political Donations Timeline]] and the running story in [[Peter Thiel News Log]]. The canonical [[Peter Thiel]] page carries the summary. > Figures are disclosed contributions as reported (FEC, OpenSecrets, state filings) plus documented dark-money flows where attribution is established. Verify live totals against FEC and OpenSecrets; super-PAC and 501(c)(4) routing means disclosed numbers understate true influence. ## The arc in one line Libertarian small-donor (Ron Paul era) → Trump pivot (2016) → **kingmaker** (2022 Senate slate, his protégés) → consolidation (leadership PACs, administration access). The dollars track the ideological escalation mapped in [[Peter Thiel Ideology]]. ## Phase 1 — Libertarian (2011–2012) | Cycle | Recipient | Amount | Notes | |---|---|---|---| | 2012 | [[Endorse Liberty]] | $2.6M | Pro–[[Ron Paul]] super-PAC; 66% of its full-cycle $3.94M per FEC (76% was a mid-cycle snapshot) | | 2012 | Revolution PAC | $135K | Also pro–Ron Paul | ## Phase 2 — Trump pivot (2016) | Cycle | Recipient | Amount | Notes | |---|---|---|---| | 2016 | Donald Trump / pro-Trump efforts | $1.25M | Late-cycle; paired with a prime-time Republican National Convention speech | ## Phase 3 — Kingmaker (2022) The cycle that defined Thiel as a maker of senators rather than a check-writer. ~$35M+ across roughly 16 federal races, concentrated on two protégés. | Cycle | Recipient | Amount | Beneficiary | Notes | |---|---|---|---|---| | 2022 | [[Protect Ohio Values PAC]] | $10M+ | [[JD Vance]] | Single-candidate super-PAC; launched Vance's Senate run | | 2022 | [[Saving Arizona PAC]] | $20M+ | [[Blake Masters]] | Largest single-candidate bet of the cycle | | 2022 | ~14 other federal races | balance of ~$35M | various | Thiel-aligned dark money added undisclosed sums on top | ## Phase 4 — Consolidation (2025–2026) | Cycle | Recipient | Amount | Notes | |---|---|---|---| | 2025 | [[Mike Johnson]]-aligned leadership PAC | $852K | Speaker-tier access | | 2025 | [[Kevin McCarthy]] | documented | Recorded on LittleSis | The 2026 posture is documented in [[Peter Thiel News Log]]: Thiel and [[Elon Musk]] are reported as the **first and third** largest individual-billionaire GOP donors for the 2026 cycle, with overlapping candidate slates and a shared broker in [[JD Vance]]. See [[Elon Musk Political Donations]] for the matched Musk ledger. ## State-level and tax-driven giving - [[Thiel California Wealth Tax Donation]] — funding against the California one-time wealth-tax ballot initiative, paired with his late-2025 exit from California ahead of the Jan 1, 2026 residency deadline. ## Reading the ledger — three patterns The patronage logic is analyzed in [[Peter Thiel Ideology]] and the network it buys in [[Peter Thiel First Degree Connections]]: 1. **Concentration over breadth.** Thiel writes few, enormous checks into single-candidate vehicles rather than spreading money thinly — the venture-portfolio model applied to politics. 2. **Protégés, not parties.** The biggest spends back people he has personally cultivated ([[JD Vance]], [[Blake Masters]]), turning donations into placements. 3. **Disclosure floor.** Reported figures are a floor; Thiel-tied 501(c)(4) and dark-money routing means the true total is structurally unknowable. ## See Also - [[Peter Thiel]] — canonical biography - [[Thiel Political Donations Timeline]] — chronological version - [[Peter Thiel Dossier]] - [[Elon Musk Political Donations]] — matched donor ledger - [[Thiel Network]] - [[LittleSis Cross-Reference - Peter Thiel]]