Peter Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies and Founders Fund, is ranked No. 87 on the Forbes 2026 World’s Billionaires list with a net worth of $28.4 billion. He was the first outside investor in Facebook.
Peter Andreas Thiel was born on October 11, 1967, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. His family moved to the United States when he was a year old and lived in Cleveland, Ohio, where his father worked as a chemical engineer. In 1971 they moved to South African-occupied Namibia, and in 1977 back to the United States.
Net Worth and Rank
- Forbes 2026 list: No. 87, with $28.4 billion
- Later estimate: Wikipedia says Forbes estimated $37.7 billion as of October 2026
Career
After studying at Stanford University and graduating from Stanford Law School in 1992, Thiel clerked for a federal appeals court judge, worked as a securities lawyer at Sullivan & Cromwell, and then as a derivatives trader at Credit Suisse.
- 1996: he founded Thiel Capital Management
- 1998: he co-founded PayPal with Max Levchin and Luke Nosek and was its CEO until its sale to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion
- 2003: he launched Palantir, a big-data analysis company, and has been its chairman since then
- August 2004: he became Facebook’s first outside investor, buying a 10.2% stake for $500,000
- 2005: he launched Founders Fund with PayPal partners Ken Howery and Luke Nosek
- 2010–2012: he co-founded Valar Ventures (2010), founded Thiel Capital (2011) and co-founded Mithril Capital (2012)
His hedge fund Clarium Capital, based in San Francisco, came after PayPal.
Foundation, Citizenship and Politics
- Thiel Foundation: it runs the grant-making bodies Breakout Labs and the Thiel Fellowship
- New Zealand citizenship: he was granted it in 2011, which became controversial when it was made public in 2017
- Politics: he is described as a conservative libertarian and has made substantial donations to right-wing figures and causes in the United States, according to Wikipedia; commentators and scholars frequently examine his political and ideological positions
Why It Matters
Thiel’s investments in Facebook and Palantir, and the PayPal founders’ network, shaped much of Silicon Valley, and his political views make him one of its most discussed figures.
Net worth figures change daily with share prices. Rankings here follow the Forbes 2026 World’s Billionaires list, with wealth measured on March 1, 2026.
Image: Peter Thiel at an event in February 2022. Photo: Gage Skidmore / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
