Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance has urged tech billionaire Peter Thiel to “get off the sidelines” and help bankroll the Republicans’ White House bid, as the party tries to build a war chest to defeat Kamala Harris.
Vance’s plea to Thiel, his former Silicon Valley boss, came in an interview with the Financial Times in Wisconsin, one of the swing states that could decide November’s presidential election, where he also called for the break-up of one of Big Tech’s most powerful companies, Google.
Thiel, co-founder of online payments system PayPal and data analytics group Palantir, has been reluctant to support any candidates in this year’s election despite donating to the Republican campaign in 2016 and sponsoring Vance’s US Senate bid in 2022.