# Jeff Giesea Jeff Giesea is an American entrepreneur and writer best known as a longtime [[Peter Thiel]] associate who became a key organizer of the pro-Trump online "meme army" in 2016. He is a connective node between Thiel's world and the far right, and a leading popularizer of the concept of "memetic warfare." ## Thiel Orbit and Meme Warfare Giesea edited the Stanford Review — the conservative paper Thiel co-founded — and after graduating in 1997 went to work for Thiel Capital Management, Thiel's hedge fund. He later coined and championed "memetic warfare," even publishing an essay on the subject in a NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence journal. He helped run MAGA3X, a meme-driven social-media organization that promoted Trump's 2016 campaign, and reportedly donated $5,000 to [[Richard Spencer]]'s organization (though he denied authoring a pseudonymous guide to funding alt-right groups). ## DeploraBall and the Far Right Giesea co-organized the January 2017 DeploraBall with [[Mike Cernovich]], an inauguration-week party that functioned as a coming-out event for the nationalist far right (and which pointedly banned Spencer). [[Peter Thiel]] attended. In 2017 Giesea also hosted a Washington dinner with figures adjacent to the white nationalist fringe, including former Daily Caller writer Scott Greer and [[Darren Beattie]]. Giesea later distanced himself from the movement, writing in 2022 that he had "lost passion for Trump" and urging the American right to break from him. ## The DeAnna Connection Giesea belongs to the same cluster of 2016 Thiel-adjacent contacts that the leaked [[Katie McHugh]] emails illuminated. While the documented July 2016 dinner between Thiel and [[Kevin DeAnna]] was arranged by [[Brendan Kissam]], Giesea is the recurring figure who most visibly bridged Thiel's network and alt-right organizing during the same period — part of the pattern that made Thiel's proximity to the racist fringe a story. ## See Also - [[Peter Thiel]] — longtime employer and associate - [[Mike Cernovich]] — DeploraBall co-organizer - [[Kevin DeAnna]] — fellow figure in the 2016 Thiel-adjacent milieu - [[Alt-Right]]