Billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel’s relationship with former President Donald Trump may have improved after Trump chose Thiel’s top pick of Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate.

The relationship between Trump and Thiel, who co-founded PayPal, turned sour in 2023 after Thiel declined to support Trump’s reelection campaign. However, in an interview with the New York Times, Thiel, for the first time since Vance was chosen, expressed that he was more “hopeful” for a second Trump term than he was before.

“I always try to resist getting swept up in excitement,” Thiel, a former employer and Vance mentor, told the New York Times. “But in spite of many misgivings I had earlier this year, it makes me more hopeful that a second Trump term will be better than the first.”

The Times reported that Thiel and other prominent Silicon Valley figures were hoping Trump would settle on Vance.

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During the 2022 midterm elections, Thiel backed his former employees Vance and Blake Masters, the latter of whom ran an unsuccessful Senate campaign in Arizona. Thiel invested a total of $35 million in the election cycle but has since expressed a desire to reduce his involvement in partisan politics. He donated $1 million to Trump’s first presidential campaign in 2016 but made no contributions in 2020 and has yet to donate for Trump’s third campaign in 2024. Thiel was reportedly disappointed with the Trump administration, feeling it failed to fulfill some campaign promises while in office.

According to the New York Times, Vance’s nomination for vice president suggests that the Trump campaign might be closely monitoring major donors like Thiel. Vance also received support from other Silicon Valley mega-donors, including tech entrepreneur David Sacks and Palantir adviser Jacob Helberg, as well as from Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr.

That said, though Thiel introduced Vance to Trump at the start of 2021, he has said he isn’t going to donate to any super PACs.

“I went on record saying I would not give money to super PACs, and I still feel I have to stick with that,” he said.

“I think it’s going to be very different from 2016 or 2020. I don’t think the election is going to be close. I think Trump and JD will crush the election by a solid margin — 4 percent or 5 percent of the popular vote. And it doesn’t matter what I do. It doesn’t matter what Democrat donors do,” Thiel added.

Some critics have said that Trump should consider changing his choice for vice president, but Frank Luntz, a renowned pollster who has been anti-Trump, said that is not the case. During a CNN segment last week, he said Vance appeals to a part of the electorate that the former president needs.

“He chose to double down. And J.D. Vance comes from the background that Trump’s focusing on, so he’s credible. And he’s got the language because this is how he grew up,” he said. “To me, the most important segment of the population, the one that makes or breaks, are these paycheck-to-paycheck voters, people who have jobs, they’ve been working, they may not be college graduates, and they’re struggling. And it represents one-fourth of the American electorate. Normally, they vote Democrat over Republican by about two to one. Trump brought it to three to two, even closer. That segment, if they break for Harris, she’s the next president. If Trump can keep them, he’s the next president.”

“J.D. Vance appeals to them because … it’s who he was. It’s not a segment we talk about. It’s not a segment we see. I get them in focus groups because I go out to these states, but they are really suffering,” he said. “The economy is not doing well for them. These are not shareholders, these are not people who have a cushion. If they get fired or one check doesn’t work, they could lose their homes. They could lose their cars. And we are very sympathetic towards them as a country. Watch because I think that’s going to be the focus going forward.”

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