A group of billionaires from Silicon Valley intends to end democracy—not only in the United States, but across the entire world. In other words, their plan is to establish a technocratic dictatorship, and its leading figure is JD Vance, the Vice President of the United States. This collaboration we are presenting is extremely critical of major tech companies. This is to be expected, because as these companies grow more concentrated in power, and with the spotlight cast on them by the second Trump Administration—as organized groups and protests begin to emerge on social media (they don’t fully dominate us yet)—the Laboratory sees the need to examine these trends and facts in depth. Furthermore, it is important to bring to light the role of certain “unknowns”—low-profile but powerful individuals in these domains—such as Peter Thiel, who has been called “Trump’s left hand” in these matters. He maintains a much lower profile than Elon Musk, yet his influence within the U.S. Administration is no less powerful.
Collaboration by Manuela Battaglini Manrique de Lara
Let’s begin by asking: who are these billionaires? Most of them come from a Silicon Valley group known as the PayPal Mafia (see an expansion on this at the end of the note). Among the co-founders of PayPal are Elon Musk—whose actions we are already well aware of—and Peter Thiel, who is also a co-founder of Palantir (see the clarification about Palantir at the end of this note), the world’s largest surveillance company (see a much broader explanation of what Palantir is at the end of this note).
South Africa plays a significant role here. For context:
Elon Musk lived in apartheid-era South Africa until he was 17.
David Sacks—entrepreneur, author, politician, and investor who has served as Chair of the Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology since 2025—became a fundraiser for Donald Trump. He left South Africa at age five and was raised in a South African diaspora family in Tennessee.
Peter Thiel spent part of his childhood in South Africa and Namibia, where his father was involved in uranium mining as part of the apartheid regime’s clandestine campaign to acquire nuclear weapons.
And Paul Furber, a little-known South African software developer and tech journalist living near Johannesburg, has been identified by two teams of forensic linguists as the creator of the QAnon conspiracy, which helped shape Trump’s MAGA movement.
In short, four of the most influential MAGA voices are white men in their fifties with formative experiences in apartheid-era South Africa.
What do they have in common?
A common thread among many white South Africans who witnessed the end of apartheid and the current American right wing: a disdain for government. The apartheid regime—and later the African National Congress—left millions of South Africans without electricity, dignity, security, or decent education. That experience can foster anti-government libertarianism.
Back to this group from Silicon Valley. What is their plan?
To begin with, the creation of California Forever—a city that this group of billionaires wants to build about 80 kilometers from San Francisco.
They despise democracy. These tech billionaires, who are Trump supporters, believe democracy is bad. They want to create their own corporate dictatorships, called Red States. They are actively trying to build these small, strange, dictatorial cities around the world, including in California.
Additionally, they aim to control existing governments. In San Francisco, a group of these tech billionaires is attempting to gain control of City Hall. Peter Thiel is one of the masterminds behind this plan, and his partner in this endeavor is J.D. Vance, Vice President of the United States.
Let’s Stay in San Francisco to Talk About Another Member of This Group: Garry Tan
Garry Tan is the CEO of Y Combinator, a well-known venture capital firm in San Francisco that is currently leading a tech-funded campaign to take over the city government.
His attacks on San Francisco’s Democratic politicians via Twitter are frequent, and he even donated $100,000 to the recall campaign against District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who was removed in 2022. That same year, Garry Tan was appointed CEO of Y Combinator. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, praised Garry Tan for his political activism.
Garry Tan escalated his rhetoric and, in a YouTube video, promised to “eliminate” all the city supervisors who opposed robo-taxis in San Francisco, listing them one by one.
Garry Tan is part of the group of Silicon Valley billionaires who want to build privately governed cities as part of the “Red State” movement. In San Francisco, he is working on an adjacent strategy. But Garry Tan’s plan is to capture San Francisco’s government in the November elections and hold it hostage to his demands.
Third, They Want to Punish Democrats in Strange Ways
One of their main influencers, Balaji Srinivasan, has suggested that his tech colleagues form a “gray tribe,” purge Democrats from San Francisco, and build statues to remind people how bad Democrats are.
Balaji Srinivasan is another member of this group. He is a serial entrepreneur and former CTO of Coinbase. He published his influential book titled The Network State: How to Start a New Country, which presents a revolutionary idea in governance. He defines the network state as “a highly aligned online community with collective action capability that crowdfunds territory around the world and gains diplomatic recognition from pre-existing states.”
These initiatives go beyond theory—they actively work to make these sovereign, digitally prioritized communities a reality. Some of the main network state initiatives include:
• Praxis: “A global community developing a shared culture, institutions, and infrastructure. Praxis is a home for the brave, those who strive for virtue and wisdom. Our purpose is to restore Western civilization and pursue our ultimate destiny of life among the stars.”
Praxis aims to build a new city on the Mediterranean coast, governed and built by the community. The team has already gained significant traction, with over 80,000 community members, major funding from entities such as Winklevoss Capital, Benchmark Ventures, Paradigm, and others, and has hired a top-tier team that includes a former G7 prime minister to support the city’s negotiation and planning.
The goal is for the first citizens to move into the new city of Praxis within this decade.
From blockchain-based governance platforms to special economic zones, each project contributes to the evolution of a narrative around decentralized, digital communities with a physical nexus.
Will they succeed? They are at different stages of development and still face unique challenges, but there is growing interest in redefining governance in the digital age.
• J.D. Vance Is One of Them
He was literally placed on Trump’s candidate list by the same group of people—Peter Thiel, David Sacks, Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen—behind all the strange projects journalist Gil Durán has been reporting on in The New Republic.
Peter Thiel was JD Vance’s benefactor, but both are inspired by a dark software developer with truly terrifying ideas about reorganizing society.
That person is Curtis Yarvin, a software developer from San Francisco. He wrote under a pseudonym, proposing a horrific solution for people he considered “unproductive”: “turn them into biodiesel, which could help fuel Muni buses.”
He added: “The problem with the biodiesel solution is that no one would want to live in a city where public transportation was powered, even in part, by the distilled remains of its late lower class. However, it helps our goal, which is a humane alternative to genocide.”
He later said that the most humane alternative to genocide is to imprison them in “permanent solitary confinement,” where, to prevent them from going insane, they would be connected to an “immersive virtual reality interface” so they could “experience a rich and full life in a completely imaginary world.”
Yarvin’s manifestos have gained influential followers like Peter Thiel and his Silicon Valley protégé, Vice President J.D. Vance.
What Is Their Plan?
To implement techno-authoritarianism through Vance in the White House, and then expand it to Europe. And that is exactly what is happening.
The tech billionaires behind Trump already have money. Now they want power: to create their own countries, redefine what it means to be human, control the destiny of the world. Their interest is primarily ideological, not economic.
Cryptocurrencies also play a HUGE role in this strangeness. Just as they created new currencies to challenge existing ones, they now want to create new countries to challenge existing nations. It’s all about power and control.
This shows we don’t have a technology problem—we have a narrative problem, or a problem with social technologies. The old order is dead, people are deeply angry with the political parties of the old order, and the new ones haven’t realized what’s brewing in the dark depths.
Are you seriously telling me that while all this is happening in Europe, we’re still stuck talking about how Apple’s messages to Androids lack privacy? Why does Europe smell like mothballs and insist on staying that way?
Trump has sold his soul to the devil. He has sold his soul to these sociopathic and psychopathic billionaires, and their plan might work because of the widespread exhaustion with the status quo.
Racist and anti-immigrant parties will gain ground. They expel immigrants on camera, and at the same time let others in so no one notices that immigrants are not really the problem. And with the other hand, they carry out these insane plans.
How Long Have We Been Warning That Tech Monopolies Needed to Be Stopped?
How long? YEARS. But the people who make good predictions are expelled from political discourse. Famous and prestigious economists are paid not to talk about economic inequality, it is not discussed in universities, it is not discussed on TV. And yet, economic inequality—alongside the concentration of power in the hands of a handful of tech billionaires with fascist and exterminationist ideas—is the problem.
I repeat: economic inequality and concentration of power.
Conclusion: we don’t have a problem with physical technologies; we have a problem with social technologies—with narrative. There are no positive leaders, only mediocre ones.
We need leaders who can design narratives that unite countries, like when J.F. Kennedy delivered those still-moving words:
“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. In a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the Moon; if we make this judgment, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.”
It is one of the strongest feelings a human being can experience. I belong to this country, it gives me identity, I feel proud and distinguished from others. Pure social technology.
Expansion I – The PayPal Mafia
The “PayPal Mafia”: The Silent Revolutionaries of Silicon Valley
At the dawn of the 21st century, as the world wavered between the dot-com collapse and the rise of a new digital era, a group of nonconformists was secretly writing the script for the future. The so-called “PayPal Mafia”—not a criminal organization, but a network of former PayPal collaborators—was made up of people whose ambition and talent redefined entire industries, from space travel to social networks. Their legacy isn’t just billion-dollar companies, but a model of how boldness, loyalty, and a shared vision can change the course of technology.
The Origins: A Crucible of Heretics
It all began in 1998, when Peter Thiel and Max Levchin founded Confinity, a startup focused on secure payments for Palm Pilot devices. At the same time, Elon Musk launched X.com, an online bank. After fierce competition, the two companies merged in 2000 under the name PayPal, creating a system that allowed money transfers via email. In that cauldron of ideas, brilliant and contradictory personalities clashed: Reid Hoffman (future founder of LinkedIn), David Sacks (creator of Yammer), Chad Hurley and Steve Chen (co-founders of YouTube), and Keith Rabois (leader at Square and Opendoor).
PayPal not only survived the dot-com bubble burst, it was acquired by eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion. However, its true impact emerged afterward: its employees, armed with capital, experience, and an unbreakable network, dispersed to found or invest in companies that now dominate the tech landscape.
The Philosophy: Betting on the Impossible
The “mafia” shared a creed: challenge the established order. Thiel summarized it in his famous phrase: “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.” Their approach combined technical pragmatism with an almost messianic ambition:
• Bold investment: Thiel was the first outside investor in Facebook (2004), betting $500,000 for 10% of a college social network.
• Radical disruption: Musk funneled his PayPal fortune into SpaceX and Tesla, challenging the aerospace and automotive industries.
• Trust networks: Former PayPal members prioritized working with each other. Rabois invested in Yelp, Sacks in Yammer, Hoffman in nearly everything.
Their management style, forged in the chaos of PayPal, was intense and meritocratic. “I paid more for debate than for consensus,” Thiel once admitted. This culture of brutal discussions and rapid execution became their hallmark.
Controversies: The Dark Side of Disruption
The “mafia” hasn’t escaped controversy. Thiel, a libertarian who funded the lawsuit that sank Gawker, and Musk, whose tweets have moved markets, embody the tech-oligarch archetype: brilliant, but disconnected from the social consequences of their power.
• Centralization vs. democracy: while PayPal promised to empower individuals, companies like Facebook (backed by Thiel) have been accused of eroding privacy and democracy.
• Work ethics: Musk’s obsession with impossible goals at Tesla and SpaceX has drawn criticism over extreme working conditions.
• Political influence: Hoffman, though a Democrat, has been questioned for using his fortune to fund technocratic campaigns.
The Legacy: Beyond Money
Today, the “mafia’s” influence is omnipresent:
• Venture capitalism: firms like Founders Fund (Thiel) or Valar Ventures (Hoffman) fund startups that disrupt industries.
• Startup culture: their model of “small teams, big impact” has inspired generations of entrepreneurs.
• Techno-utopian philosophy: their belief that technology can solve any problem—from climate change (Musk) to mortality (Thiel invests in anti-aging startups)—defines the ethos of Silicon Valley.
The Future: A New Generation?
Although some members, like Musk or Thiel, remain at the top, others have shifted to more discreet roles. Their network, however, persists: David O. Sacks now leads the contrarian movement in venture capital, while Luke Nosek, co-founder of Founders Fund, explores clean energy. The question is whether their model—a mix of genius, arrogance, and tribal loyalty—can be replicated in a world where technology is no longer seen as an unquestionable force of progress.
Final Reflection: Heroes or Mercenaries?
The “PayPal Mafia” embodies the central paradox of the technological era: they are pioneers who democratized access to services but also architects of digital monopolies. Their story is not one of good versus evil, but of how human ambition, when scaled with algorithms and capital, can build utopias and dystopias simultaneously. In a world increasingly shaped by their creations, their legacy forces us to ask: do we want to live in the future they imagined?
Expansion II – Palantir
Palantir: The Analytical Eye in the Data World
In a universe flooded with information, where every click, transaction, or sensor generates a digital trail, Palantir emerges as the architect of a global nervous system. Founded in 2003 by Peter Thiel—co-founder of PayPal—alongside Alex Karp, Joe Lonsdale, and others, this software company is not just a technological tool but a master key to decipher hidden patterns in the chaos of data. Its name, inspired by the palantíri from The Lord of the Rings—mystical spheres that allowed seeing through space and time—reflects its ambition: to turn scattered data into strategic clairvoyance.
The Foundations: From National Security to Business Revolution
Palantir was born in a post-9/11 context when U.S. intelligence agencies faced a paradox: they had millions of data points but lacked the capacity to connect them. Its first platform, Gotham, was designed to solve this problem. Unlike traditional databases, Gotham integrated information from disparate sources—from financial records to encrypted communications—and visualized it on interactive maps where human analysts could detect terrorist threats or criminal networks. It was instrumental in operations such as the hunt for Osama bin Laden and fighting financial fraud.
Over the years, Palantir expanded beyond the government realm. Its second flagship platform, Foundry, targets private companies, enabling giants like Airbus, Merck, or BP to integrate data from factories, supply chains, and markets in real time. Imagine an airline predicting mechanical failures before they happen or a hospital cross-referencing medical histories with clinical trials to personalize treatments: that is Foundry’s promise.
Technological Philosophy: Humans and Machines in Symbiosis
What distinguishes Palantir is not only its analytical power but its hybrid approach. Unlike purely automated AI systems, its platforms are designed to enhance human intuition. An analyst can, for example, trace connections between data nodes that an algorithm might overlook, while the AI suggests alternative hypotheses based on predictive models. This marriage between human brain and machine has made Palantir an indispensable ally in critical missions, from tracking pandemics to optimizing logistics in modern warfare.
Controversies and Ethical Dilemmas
With great power comes great scrutiny. Palantir has been both praised and questioned. Its contracts with agencies like ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) have raised criticism for their role in mass deportations. Human rights organizations warn that its technology could become a tool for mass surveillance, eroding privacy. The company insists its tools are neutral: “We are a mirror,” says CEO Alex Karp, “how it is used depends on who looks into it.”
The Future: From the Digital Cold War to Civil Innovation
Today, Palantir navigates ambitious waters. After going public in 2020, it seeks to diversify into sectors such as health—collaborating with WHO to model disease outbreaks—and green energy, helping companies reduce emissions through data analysis. Its bet on explainable Artificial Intelligence—systems whose decisions can be audited and understood—aims to meet demands for transparency.
In a world where data is the new oil, Palantir is not just a company: it is a symptom of an era demanding to translate information into action. Its story, woven between technological idealism and the shadow of power, reminds us that in the battle to dominate the future, the question is not what these tools can see, but what we decide to do with what they reveal.
Manuela Battaglini Manrique is a writer and analyst known for her critical perspectives on technology, politics, and society. She often explores the influence of tech billionaires and their impact on democracy and governance.
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