SAN FRANCISCO: Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel has branded Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and critics of artificial intelligence as “legionnaires of the Antichrist”, during a series of private lectures.

The eight hours of lectures fused religious beliefs with warnings against technology regulation, according to recordings reviewed by Washington Post.

In four roughly two-hour talks delivered over the past month at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Thiel argued that those proposing limits on technology development threaten to bring about the destruction of the United States and an era of global totalitarian rule, the Post reported on Friday.

Thiel has a net worth that stands at around $27 billion and has close ties to the Trump administration, including Vice President J. D. Vance, a former associate.

He was also the only major figure from Silicon Valley that supported Donald Trump in his 2016 campaign to be president.

Published in Dawn, October 11th, 2025