One of the bigger moneymen for Republicans is locked and loaded for the general election.
The only problem, he will not just support anyone.
Peter Thiel is ready to back DeSantis, but he will only be doing so if DeSantis comes out of the primary race, reports the Daily Caller.
I’m Ready
Thiel was a major donor to Donald Trump in 2016, having put up more than $1 million for his campaign.
He backed off in 2020, but he again went all-in in 2022, reportedly spending $35 million on various campaigns with the GOP.
Thiel has already stated that he would not support Donald Trump again, but he is looking to drop some big bucks on Ron DeSantis, IF he is the nominee… that is the caveat.
On DeSantis, Thiel stated, “I think DeSantis would make a terrific president if he’s the Republican nominee. I will strongly support him in 2024,” reports The Hill.
He added, “But I do worry that focusing on the woke issue as ground zero is not quite enough.”
He continued, “That kind of an economic cost is probably not enough to offset all the ‘wokeness’ in the world or even the taxes. And so it’s a really hard problem to solve. Like, what do you do about these runaway rents, these runaway housing costs, that’s a super hard problem to solve, I have no idea how to solve that. I understand why DeSantis doesn’t talk about that but it surely is a bigger problem.”
NEW from Peter Thiel → 🇺🇸 🇺🇸 🇺🇸
"I think @RonDeSantisFL would make a terrific president if he's the Republican nominee. I will strongly support him in 2024."
via @BariWeiss's @TheHonestlyPod https://t.co/qPLQxK3HQf pic.twitter.com/XAUrphDFiW
— Brian Anderson (@AZBrianAnderson) May 3, 2023
Now, that report goes contrary to what Thiel had said only in April, when it was reported that he would not be funding any campaigns in the 2024 cycle…
Reuters: Peter Thiel, Republican megadonor, won’t fund candidates in 2024 https://t.co/EFmMGQ9jhC
— Meridith McGraw (@meridithmcgraw) April 26, 2023
Thiel made his money selling PayPal, then becoming the first outside investor for Facebook.
His current net worth is about $4 billion, so he clearly has enough money to drop into a PAC to impact the race.
The Trump campaign has already pushed back on the news, stating that it won’t matter because DeSantis will never beat Trump in the primary.
That is why they play the games, folks. As I like to tell my friends, we shall see what we see when we sit.
