Peter Thiel Slams Obama, Pope Leo In New ‘antichrist’ Lectures

Tech billionaire Peter Thiel is escalating his attacks on critics of artificial intelligence, accusing former President Barack Obama and the pope of exploiting the public’s fears about AI, according to exclusive recordings of closed-door lectures obtained by Decoded by POLITICO.

In a new series of talks in Nashville, Thiel singled out the two leaders as he sharpened his warnings about the Antichrist — a figure who he sees as stopping the progress of technology and advocating for a “one world government” of regulation.

“Many people know that AI is politically unpopular and want to leverage that to boost their own popularity,” Thiel said. “Both Obama and the pope fall into this category. Obama knows the Democrats have no ideas, but they can at least oppose AI.”

The former president recently urged Democrats to come up with a more comprehensive plan on AI.

Thiel was even more critical of Pope Leo XIV, suggesting his focus on AI was an attempt to divert attention from the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandals.

“He needed something politically popular to distract from the church’s child sex abuse scandals, and he found it in AI,” Thiel said, referring to the pope’s first encyclical on AI.

Thiel’s comments, delivered during lectures Sept. 28 and Oct. 5, offer a rare window into the evolving political priorities of one of the tech industry’s most influential conservative figures. His anti-regulation stance is nothing new and is in fact a commonly held belief among certain venture capitalists in Silicon Valley.

But his decision to cast these political disagreements in religious terms — and attack the leader of the Catholic Church — goes further than his politically active counterparts on the tech right.

The shift carries implications well beyond the world of tech. Thiel was an early supporter of President Donald Trump and a major financial backer of Vice President JD Vance’s entrance into politics from venture capitalism.

His attacks on the church could raise questions for Vance, a converted Catholic. As Democrats begin positioning themselves for 2028, some have already begun targeting Vance over his ties to the billionaire investor.

Representatives for Thiel, Obama, Vance and the Vatican did not respond to requests for comment.

A version of this story first appeared in Decoded by POLITICO, the must-read briefing on the people, power moves, policy battles and market shifts defining what’s next in global technology. Sign up to subscribe to the newsletter and listen to the podcast.