US billionaire Peter Thiel is hosting a series of closed-door lectures in Rome on the doorstep of the Vatican, focused on the concept of the Antichrist.
The invitation-only conference began on Sunday and will run through Wednesday, with locations reportedly shifting and no recording devices permitted.
Thiel, 58, a billionaire entrepreneur and political donor best known for co-founding PayPal and Palantir, is outlining his personal philosophy about the potential emergence of an Antichrist and the threat of Armageddon.
The Antichrist is a figure in Christian theology believed to be a powerful deceiver who will oppose Jesus Christ and lead many people away from the faith before the end of the world.
While details about the Rome lectures remain scarce, Thiel delivered a similar series in San Francisco last year in which he argued that an Antichrist figure could rise to power by exploiting fears of global catastrophes.
In those talks, Thiel suggested such a leader could promise to prevent existential threats, such as nuclear war, artificial intelligence risks or climate disaster, while using those fears to justify the creation of a one-world government.
The billionaire is now reportedly expanding on those ideas in Rome, a move that has already drawn criticism from religious scholars.
Father Paolo Benanti, a Catholic theologian who advises the pope on artificial intelligence, described Thiel as acting as a ‘political theologian’ within Silicon Valley.
In an essay published Saturday on Le Grand Continent, Benanti wrote that Thiel’s views represent ‘a prolonged act of heresy against the liberal consensus’ and challenge ‘the very foundations of civil coexistence.’
Peter Thiel, 58, a billionaire entrepreneur and political donor best known for co-founding PayPal and Palantir, is outlining his personal philosophy about the potential emergence of an Antichrist and the threat of Armageddon
Thiel is known to be somewhat obsessed with the Antichrist and Armageddon, the biblical final battle between good and evil.
Thiel speaks of the concepts in terms of the choices facing humanity to confront the existential risks of the world today.
‘Christians debated these prophecies for millennia. Who was the Antichrist? When would he arrive? What would he preach?’ he mused in a November essay in the Catholic magazine First Things.
He grew up in an Evangelical Christian family and has said Christianity shapes his worldview.
The Rome lectures appear to follow the blueprint of a four-part lecture series he gave in San Francisco last September.
Some of the invitations circulating in Rome, for example, copy the description of the San Francisco event.
‘His remarks will be anchored on science and technology, and will comment on the theology, history, literature and politics of the Antichrist. Religious thinkers upon whom Peter will draw include René Girard, Francis Bacon, Jonathan Swift, Carl Schmitt and John Henry Newman,’ said one invitation.
Thiel, who co-founded PayPal in 1998, and other entrepreneurs of that era were part of a group dubbed the ‘PayPal Mafia,’ including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, and YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen.
Thiel is known to be somewhat obsessed with the Antichrist and Armageddon, the Biblical final battle between good and evil
After PayPal was sold to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion, Thiel founded the hedge fund Clarium Capital Management and helped launch Palantir Technologies, which recently inked an agreement with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to streamline the process of identifying and deporting people the agency is targeting.
Lecture notes from Thiel’s San Francisco event were reportedly published online by tech worker Kshitij Kulkarni, head of protocol research at software company Succinct.
According to notes, Thiel opened the lecture series by examining the biblical concept of the Antichrist and its possible role in modern fears about global catastrophe.
Citing the Book of Daniel, which predicts that ‘knowledge shall be increased’ in the end times, Thiel reportedly argued that rapid technological progress could intensify apocalyptic anxieties and create conditions in which a powerful authoritarian figure might rise.
He suggested that modern society, despite its technological advances, is increasingly preoccupied with existential threats such as artificial intelligence, nuclear war and bioweapons, echoing themes commonly associated with apocalyptic prophecy.
The billionaire also reportedly explored the idea that the Antichrist could emerge as a leader promising peace and safety during a period of global crisis, potentially consolidating power through calls for a unified world government.
The notes claimed that Thiel framed this scenario as a tension between two possible outcomes: catastrophic conflict, what biblical texts describe as Armageddon, or a global authority claiming to prevent disaster.
The lecture also reportedly examined how modern technological progress has transformed humanity’s relationship with risk.
Thiel argued that the same scientific breakthroughs capable of advancing civilization, such as nuclear physics or artificial intelligence, also carry the potential to threaten it.
He pointed to the development of the atomic bomb in 1945 as a turning point when technology itself became associated with apocalyptic fears.
The notes also suggested Thiel further argued that contemporary concerns about AI, biological weapons, nuclear war and population decline resemble secular versions of biblical end-times warnings.
During a question-and-answer session, Thiel reportedly suggested the Antichrist could ultimately emerge as a single powerful leader, rather than merely a political system, particularly because modern technology gives humanity unprecedented capacity for self-destruction.
He also reportedly said such a figure could rise to power by leveraging widespread fears about global crises, presenting themselves as the only leader capable of preventing catastrophe.
