'Agent of chaos' Peter Thiel is lecturing on the Antichrist at the Vatican's doorstep

Not since Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of a Roman Catholic Church in Germany more than 500 years ago has the Vatican been the target of such a powerful man on a mission.

This week, gay tech tycoon Peter Thiel, the libertarian billionaire backer of President Donald Trump and personal friend to Vice President J.D. Vance, is delivering invitation-only lectures at a palace in downtown Rome that dates back to the Renaissance.

Related: Have the gay tech titans turned their back on us?

No media allowed. No recording devices either.

The invitations described the lectures as being “anchored on science and technology,” according to Variety. The Independent called them “one of the hottest tickets in Rome.”

But the talks at Palazzo Orsini Taverna, just steps from Vatican City, have the tongues of priests and church ladies alike wagging: The Antichrist, Armageddon — which Thiel says is imminent — and artificial intelligence.

As for AI, The Washington Post reported in October that Thiel is arguing that the Antichrist may manifest as a global government system that could take power by exploiting citizens’ fears about artificial intelligence, climate change, or nuclear war.

"Peter Thiel knows as much about the Antichrist as I do about AI, which is to say not a lot,” Rev. James Martin told The Advocate. The author, editor, and advocate for LGBTQ+ inclusion in the Catholic Church said people should pay no mind to Thiel’s thoughts.

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“Jesus himself says that even he doesn't know when the end times will come; only God the Father does. So speculation about who the Antichrist is, when he (or she or it) will come, and any other predictions about the end of the world, are to be ignored."

Other reports say Thiel’s daily lectures, which began Sunday, are reminiscent of talks he held in Paris and San Francisco, as well as an episode of TV’s irreverent cartoon, South Park.

Thiel was parodied in October 2025 as what Variety called “a satirical figure tied to the tech and political world” who is also “a bizarre authority on biblical prophecies and the Antichrist.”

At his San Francisco lecture, Thiel reportedly told the crowd, “I’m worried about the Antichrist.” He described the Antichrist as “a spiritual descriptor of the forces of evil” or “an evil king or tyrant or anti-Messiah who appears in the end times,” according to transcripts published by The Guardian last fall.

The 58-year-old Silicon Valley magnate recently made headlines for calling Pope Leo XIV “a woke American pope.” Thiel is not Catholic; he was raised by evangelical parents and considers himself a Christian who describes his faith as "small-o orthodox" and "somewhat heterodox.” He is married to financier Matt Danzeisen, and they are dads to two young children.

Thiel is also, as The Advocate reported this month, the richest out gay man on Earth, with an estimated net worth of $27.5 billion. As one of the three most well-known out gay tech titans — along with Apple’s Tim Cook and OpenAI’s Sam Altman — he not only financially supports far-right politicians around the world, he’s making money off them. Thiel’s Palantir contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to track and deport people. And as Thiel has accumulated wealth and power, the gap between him and everyday queer and trans people has only grown.

His latest Antichrist talks have not exactly been welcomed. Two Catholic universities in Italy that had been reported as partners in the lecture series now deny they had any involvement, according to The Independent,

A Catholic newspaper with close ties to the Vatican blasted Thiel as “an agent of chaos,” and on Sunday, protesters demonstrated outside Italy’s defense ministry in Rome, waving a sign in English as well as Italian, reading: “Peter Thiel out of Rome,” according to Variety.

A prominent theologian who collaborated on a book with Martin Scorsese called Thiel’s interpretation of the Bible, “brutal.”

“Any attempt to regulate artificial intelligence, to establish global governing bodies, to put the brakes on technological development, becomes— in this context — a preparation for the reign of the Antichrist,” Father Antonio Spadaro told Variety.

Another Catholic theologian, Father Paolo Benanti, wrote an essay in response to Thiel’s arrival in Rome, criticizing his bleak perspective on the world. He accused the self-styled prophet of believing society is “incapable of self-government” and that “the only alternative to apocalypse would be a technocratic order imposed by an elite of rulers.”

“In this vision, democracy understood as the self-government of equal citizens is already dead — and all that remains, in the darkness of a data center, is the clinical management of its corpse,” wrote Benanti.

Thiel did not respond to our request for comment.