Trae Stephens, a principal at billionaire Peter Thiel’s venture capital firm Founders Fund, was appointed last week by Donald Trump to help lead the transition effort at the Defense Department.
Thiel, who made a $1,000,000 donation to a pro-Trump Super PAC, is Trump’s highest-profile supporter in Silicon Valley.
At Thiel’s Founder Fund, Stephens “focuses on startups operating in the government space,” according to his official biography. Before that, he worked at another Thiel-backed firm: Palantir, a highly controversial data analysis firm that is currently competing for Defense Department contracts.
“Trae was an early employee at Palantir Technologies, where he led teams focused on growth in intelligence and defense as well as international expansion,” says the biography.
Palantir gained notoriety in 2011 after the hacking collective LulzSec dumped thousands of hacked emails from HBGary Federal, a firm collaborating with Palantir to pitch clients, revealing plans to use Palantir’s data analysis tools on a project to spy on labor unions, journalists, and activist groups on behalf of business interests. The proposal detailed a variety of surveillance techniques, including a PowerPoint presentation calling for the use of malware to steal data from target computers.
Palantir and HBGary Federal denied that the plans were acted upon and said they were merely part of an ongoing discussion, though the hacked emails revealed that the chief executive and board of Palantir signed off on the proposal.
The controversy did not stem the growth of Palantir, which is now reportedly valued at over $20 billion, a valuation that would make Thiel’s stake in the company worth potentially $2 billion.
Last year, another leaked document from Palantir revealed that as of 2013, the firm counted over a dozen federal agencies as clients, including the FBI, NSA, CIA, Special Operations Command, and the Air Force.
Palantir has been engaged in a pitched lobbying battle to win over a $3 billion contract to develop battlefield intelligence systems. In October, Palantir secured a victory in court, allowing them to move forward with the bid. The firm has hired a number of political insiders to influence military contracting decisions, including retired Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Terry Paul.
But no amount of outside lobbying can compare to having a Palantir insider now shaping the entire future of the Defense Department.
Photo: Peter Thiel at the Republican National Convention.
It all makes Icke’s theory of an alien invasion of reptiles almost plausible.
Good work as usual from Lee Fang.
Peter Thiels Elephant is in the Pentagon Briefing Room.
http://www.theverge.com/a/transhumanism-2015/history-of-transhumanism
http://fusion.net/story/312592/peter-thiel-transhumanist/
http://fusion.net/story/312592/peter-thiel-transhumanist/
Here is a great article about one of Trump’s chief economic advisors.
There are better places to put this, but I’m more interested in getting this excellent piece some publicityhttp://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-27/larry-kudlow-idiot-least-he%E2%80%99s-dangerous.
That’s a great article, but I don’t think it is sufficiently pessimistic about the motive. It’s not that Kudlow is an idiot; it’s that his party wants a recession. You know what you call it when you run a cycle, like some kind of Carnot engine, where:
a) the rich play fast and loose with fancy investment games, making a bundle of real money as they sell sucker investors trillions of weird assets nobody can actually evaluate,
b) the banks say OMG ALL OUR STUFF IS WORTHLESS! GIVE US 3 TRILLION IN TAXPAYER MONEY NOW OR THE ECONOMY COLLAPSES!
c) the federal government cuts spending that benefits ordinary people while sucking cock for anyone who promises (and fails to deliver) jobs, the workers learn to spend hours a day praying over their Facebook image that it is pathetic and compliant enough to make them look more prostitute-like and eagerer to accept less-than-foreign wages/worse-than-foreign working conditions than their neighbor
… what do you call that? Well, if you’re Kudlow, that’s a WIN_WIN_WIN! Free money being a financier, free money at the largesse of the taxpayer, and as the cherry on top, being the God of your own little empire. So I don’t call that a stupid strategy at all.
At least, not unless the angry mob stands up on its hind legs and takes immediate action during the next financial crisis to shut down Washington, shut down the votes, shut down the bailouts and the emergency responses, knowing and intending that this will be the end of the international banking system and the economy as we know it. Which is a nuclear option, but the world is run by the folks willing to press the button – the rest stand around and bitch.
ATTENTION: President elect Donald Trump.. please pick up the nearest courtesy phone. You have an important message from Tsar Nicholas Romanov ll dated 17 July 1918.
At your link, revealing plans, which was authored by you, it would have been a useful edition to this article to have included the following text from with that link:
Let’s get this straight. Donald Trump is nothing but a scum sucking maggot who would sell his mother, daughter, and grandaughter for $.10 if he could capitalize on the videos. Any moron on this planet that thinks this con artist “cares one whit about “Make America Great” needs to check into the local psych ward. The ONLY thing this reprobate cares about is …himself. And if that’s not evident by now.. then you only have yourselves to blame once this reincarnation of Himmler set’s his insanity into motion. There is only ONE solution for this scum of the human condition. You know it. I know it. And so does his security. Meanwhile, YOU pay for it by virtue of the very thing he will use to secure his agenda. The 16th Amendment. Make no mistake. Should you extend your willingness to “wait and see what he does”, the next 10 generations of your progeny will spit on your fucking grave.
ps… Fuck this Wallstreet venture capitalist walking vomit…. Trae Stephens . As a working principal of Palintar.. he is the posterchild for the Surveillance State. PERIOD. I only hope I’m witness to the day the human beings of this planet, drag these scum out of their granite palaces and burn them alive from lamp posts across this planet.
Speaking of Himmler, if anyone has any doubts what Heir Trump has in mind, this should remove every last one…
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/11/sheriff-clarke-trump-terrorists-guantanamo-bay
You couldn’t make this up if you tried. Moreover, I submit, whoever coined the term..”It can’t happen here” was a fucking moron.
On the other hand, whoever said…
“First they came for the ….” must be contemplating an American update.
Well, if Donald Trump wants to defend the country from labor unions, that’s a great choice. If he intends to start an idiotic war with Iran… well, this may help him to lose it faster; it was the will of God, you might say. If North Korea’s leader gets frisky and decides to reprogram all the self-driving cars to smash into ambulances and police cars, good luck with that! And as for the Russians, well, I suppose if they invade the Donald will be out to greet them with a bouquet of flowers. Good luck with that also.
quote”Well, if Donald Trump wants to defend the country from labor unions, that’s a great choice.”unquote
Says one who never experienced the childhood of the 19th century. I hope your own children sink into the depths of poverty and labor exploitation so the discover the fallacy of your idiocy… and then spit on your grave, if not piss on it.
Anyone who still believes in unions should check out union pension funds.
Gotta love the libertarian tards that come onto a progressive website to attack unions. Dude why are you even here?
Someday you people should look up “sarcasm”. I thought it would be obvious enough from context that I think the military has something else to do than to defend against labor unions and dissidents. Thiel and his fancy domestic spying tricks are not going to stop a hypersonic ballistic missile coming in at Mach 6 from China.
I am going seriously OT, but in light of the fact that Trump tweets lies every day, without consequence – or stopping, I made some notes this morning. Instead of letting go in respectfully disrespectful language that might hurt his feelings, I did something that makes me feel better:
@realDonaldTrump Don’t misunderstand; I want U2 succeed. Perhaps the only true dignity of man is his capacity to despise himself. Santayana.
@realDonaldTrump veritas norma sui et falsi est. Spinoza.
@realDonaldTrump axima superbia vel abjectio est maxima sui ignorantia. Spinoza.
@realDonaldTrump The picture we frame of the past changes continually and grows every day less similar to the original… @realDonaldTrump …experience which it purports to describe. Santayana
Feel free to complain.
Appealing to Trump with Latin quotes is probably something no one else has considered.
Santayana played on that “Smooth” song, didn’t he? Or was that David Hume Gilmour?
I thought it would strike a neutral tone.
Cute, Maisie.
I didn’t post the one that inspired me – too long for a tweet:
“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
“You want him to succeed” are you sure about that ? ; the wall , the deportations , the perving on women , Trump brand ?
You have to stroke the man’s ego or he will become angry and lash out. The man is thin-skinned and vengeful – right?
I am embarrassed as a human/American.
Every day bring new horrors. It can’t really be this bad, can it? This is the first election that is going to affect me directly – on Climate Change alone.
If he fails – does Pence become President? Since he cannot shut up or stop typing. let alone sit and read a briefing book, he will surely make mistakes. As the most deceitful and corrupt man ever to hold this office, he may break the laws quickly and often. Since he lies so easily, he basically telegraphs his black heart, at the core of his empty soul. This presidency might be over quickly. He can certainly go down in flames, and brilliantly (orange) as long as he doesn’t take us with him. There seems to be a proclivity to massive destruction w/all three branches in sync.
I don’t want Pence to ascend to his seat, for damned sure. Keith Olbermann does an unconvincing piece on the 25th Amendment.
https://youtu.be/Gnnj_YjdJgs
So no.
I don’t want an Obama redux the next four years either.
Yes. Very soon I expect whitehouse.gov to be added to the list of fake news sites if it isn’t already.
Yeah, something like that.
There are so many hidden gems related to our government. I was going to send a list of bids/awards/RFQs from fbo.gov to the transition team and ask: Are you ready for this?
There are all these interagency committees on Climate Change that I wanted someone to ask about in any debate. Last week’s The Years of Living Dangerously on NatGeo had a segment on some of the raised piers that house our Atlantic Fleet in Norfolk – because the ocean is rising. Norfolk will be under water and then what do we do to defend the US? There is a small portion of a base in Kuwait that runs on solar. The oil convoys. https://www.army.mil/article/167274/Schwarzenegger_talks_Army_green_energy_in_Kuwait/
What does he intend to do about this? Ignore the entire Pentagon and IC?
Did you know that Congress stripped out all the language that addressed funding for anything to do with renewables? Our worshiped armed services have their hands tied.
At least he doesn’t claim he will run the most – or least – transparent administration.
What is to wonder about is the fact that many people make claims about what this or that new technology can do; often they are lying. The people in Contracts often don’t care what the military or a more obscure and less transparent agency wants.
That is the purpose of IDA, I believe. (The Institute for Defense Analyses.)
I think if Congress spent more money on CRS, Congress would have less of a need for lobbyists. What do you think, Lee Fang?
Sloppy as hell. My apologies.
I read Andrew Cockburn’s book Kill Chain – which begins with Drones and takes the technology backward. There was a chapter that included a plane made by Jordanians (I think). The windshield was vast – the Army was trying to buy something that could see further and more – thereby protecting more convoys (soldiers) from IEDs. Drones don’t work when it’s cloudy, rainy, night, sandstorms, when it is depressed, etc. The plane was around $750,000 fully stocked with a co-pilot and one maintenance crew. The IDA chief loved it and wrote a report to everybody back at the Pentagon. Someone went around and picked up every report and shredded them. They had to protect Boeing or General Atomics – whatever.
Once the insurgents adopted and changed technologies, the jammers not only didn’t work – the USG spent millions on them for radio frequencies (or whatever) but they also prevented the pilots from calling the lead convoy to tell the driver, “IED up ahead.” All they could do was watch the convoy be blown up.
My point: Does Palantir even have a worthwhile and valuable product that works as they say it does – or is it just hype?
Sounds like a good pick to me. Not seeing why someone with his expertise would be a problem “shaping” the :::administrative::: profile (partially) of the Defense Dept. Find out things work, Fang.
Good pick?! Wow The Intercept sure has a lot of ignorant readers.
You’re right – AWESOME pick.
Depth, breadth, patriot and a visionary for the 21st century. Did you have someone else in mind?
Watched a fascinating segment of Washington Journal from somebody from an organization on Presidential Transitions – http://presidentialtransition.org/
Before spouting about his patriotism and vision, why not see what the job entails. Then if Mr Thiel is actually qualified, come back and make your point.
Correction: Trae Stephens, not Mr Thiel.
Of course, venture capitalists are people, too. But not without “special interests.”
quote”Of course, venture capitalists are people, too.”unquote
Maybe in your universe. In mine, they’re pond scum on the cesspool known as… Wallstreet .
It was a throw-away line to the supporters.
Sorry you didn’t appreciate my sarcasm.
This position sounds and looks like more redundant crap added on due to privatization of the armed forces. Can’t the army just cook for themselves.
Yes, they can and should. Thought about that this morning. A caller asked how many mercenaries we employ. He said none, but we have many contractors.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?418524-3/washington-journal-lieutenant-general-stephen-townsend-efforts-defeat-isis
If you paid closer attention – but I admit that I might be abstruse at times, I try not to be too critical and nasty but try to guide people toward a more well thought-out conclusion.
Of course, they are not likely to find one – of this I might be 100% certain.
Then again, I have yet to find one person who supports this person to be open to anything critical, perceived as negative, or see something as plain as the nose on my face – which is that his global assets pose a danger to NS.
Yep, someone without an agenda to seek and possibly destroy progressives who believe in free speech, anonymity and even habeas corpus. Well, perhaps two out of three would be better than what Thiel offers. If a rabid Democrat with the ways and means to make your life hell was being considered, I doubt you’d be so “patriotic.”
Well, surveillance state agenda is happening one way or another. The only candidate that was seeking to address anything appropriately was Rand Paul. That said, I’m much more comfortable with a National Security Apparatus outsider like Thiel than I am with any of the entrenched “pond scum” (quoting generalwarrant below) from the likes of United Technologies Corp., Booz Allen, SAIC etc. etc.
As for Thiel and punishing journalists, I am not in denial. But I think there is a much more significant problem on the DNC side.
Not sure what to make of that statement – go look at the Podesta emails regarding strategy. If I have time, I’ll come back with posts. But essentially, media manipulation, changing US demographics and painting Republicans as racists with extreme views has been a part of their strategy since 2007/8. If I could sleuth it out, I’m sure you can too….
“I’m much more comfortable with a National Security Apparatus outsider like Thiel ”
Tom , the prinicipals of Palantir Technologies are not security state ‘outsiders’. They’ve been big ticket natsec contractors for ~10 years now. I have no objection to your idea that our national security apparatus should be run by civilians rather than lifers…….. but ‘outsider’ is not an accurate description of Thiel. Or of Trae Stephens.
quote”Did you have someone else in mind?”
Yes, I do. I have a human being in mind, vs pond scum floating on the cesspool of Wallstreet. Of course, revealing it to you would be absurd. That’s like trying to explain the last chapter of Tying Shoes for Dummies.
Yea I guess if you consider spying and punishing journalists, unions, and those who think differently as being patriotic. Sure whatever you say you hot wittle fascist
Great suggestion….
Oh wait, yeah, there wasn’t one …. just pseudo intellectual hyperbole. This is why the term “Libtard” evolved. I won’t use it, I think its insulting.
What you don’t get when you just blanket insult people, as for instance, with me – I’m all for Unions, Labor Laws, Environmental Laws and sensible regulations that follow suit. I’ve actually lived in 3rd world countries … where those laws DON’T exist; and its disgusting. And that is why we need strong trade reform. Because there is no way a “Western” manufacturer can compete on price with an $8 hr work force vs. an Indonesian 8 yr old at 70 cents an hour.
But I digress…. Off the top of my head I still can’t find someone better than Thiel to help turn around an institution that can’t find $6.5 Trillion Dollars (latest Insp. Gen Report out of DOD).
quote”Not seeing why someone with his expertise would be a problem …”unquote
Hahahahahaha… says someone who skipped school the day the 4th Amendment was introduced to the students. But I’m feeling generous schmuck. Try doing a search on The Aristocracy of Stocks. Scroll down to the section on Hamilton Securities. Then search for Promis. Within it, you just might find your enlightenment…schmuck.