Comedian Tim Dillon claims Palantir founder Peter Thiel is trying to buy major influencers to promote JD Vance for the 2028 presidential run

Vice President JD Vance is well-known to have some tech billionaires as acquaintances, particularly Peter Thiel, the founder of Palantir Technologies. According to CBS News, Thiel is considered one of the biggest donors in the tech arena, who gave a massive push to Vance at the time before he became the vice president.

A video of comedian Tim Dillon speaking on the dynamics between Vance and Thiel has surfaced on social media platforms like X. Dillon could be heard saying,

"If you don't have any reservations about Palantir taking everyone's information, I don't know, I can't, I don't know if I can trust you. I think they're buying people."

He added,

"There's probably a lot of money and I just can't do it. It's not because I'm some great moral per, I just, I wouldn't be good at it. I'd be terrible at coming on here going, well."

Dillon further claimed that he has received several similar invites as well, which he eventually refused. According to Dillon, they were trying to buy popular influencers, including himself, in order to promote JD Vance's 2028 Presidential run. He, however, did not reveal any more information about the individuals he had been talking about.

Exploring more about the dynamics between Peter Thiel and JD Vance

In the year 2017, JD Vance joined Peter Thiel's global investment firm. According to CBS News, following this, Thiel had given major pushes to Vance's political career. He reportedly had donated about a whopping $15 million to the 2022 Ohio Senate campaign. After Thiel's involvement, Vance began attracting several tech-mega investors.

Despite having many investors, Vance's link with Thiel has become the most talked about one. In a 2020 blog post in the Catholic journal The Lamp Magazine, Vance talked about his first encounter with Thiel. Their first encounter happened at Yale University when Vance attended a talk by Peter Thiel.
He called the encounter "the most significant moment" at the University. Vance further added,

"If technological innovation were actually driving real prosperity, our elites wouldn't feel increasingly competitive with one another over a dwindling number of prestigious outcomes."

According to reports by CBS News, when Vance opened his venture capitalist firm, he received massive backing from Thiel. The New York Times reported that it was Thiel who brought Vance to his very first meeting with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in February 2021.
Peter Thiel also contributed at least $200,000 to Vance's super PAC, through a group under his control, known as Per Aspera Policy. At the same time, he has also received heavy donations from the Mercer, Uihlein and Lindner families.

Along with being connected to Palantir Technologies, Thiel is also a co-founder of PayPal. He also reportedly was the first outside investor in Facebook. According to Forbes, his net worth has been described as $28.4 billion as of October 31, 2025. The Thiel Foundation is known for giving $100K over two years to a few young entrepreneurs to create their own company and skip college. 

As far as Tim Dillon's comments about Peter Thiel are concerned, no response has been obtained from the billionaire's end as of now.