Peter Thiel Says Trump Failed to Meet Even His ‘Low Expectations’: ‘There Are a Lot of Things I Got Wrong’

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

Billionaire Republican donor Peter Thiel expressed disappointment with former President Donald Trump’s time in office, remarking that the administration failed to meet even his “low expectations.”

During an interview with The Atlantic’s Barton Gellman, Thiel said “voting for Trump was like a not very articulate scream for help,” which he hoped would change the country for the better, but which ultimately left him disappointed and “disenchanted.”

“There are a lot of things I got wrong,” Thiel told Gellman. “It was crazier than I thought. It was more dangerous than I thought. They couldn’t get the most basic pieces of the government to work. So that was—I think that part was maybe worse than even my low expectations.”

Thiel — who financially backed Trump in 2016 — revealed that Trump had recently called him to say “he was very sad” and “had expected way more” after Thiel refused to give the former president any money this election cycle.

“Months later, word got back to Thiel that Trump had called [Blake] Masters to discourage him from running for Senate again, and had called Thiel a ‘fucking scumbag,'” Gellman reported, adding that Thiel no longer wanted to make any donations to Republican candidates in the near future.

Thiel told Gellman, “There’s always a chance I might change my mind. But by talking to you, it makes it hard for me to change my mind. My husband doesn’t want me to give them any more money, and he’s right. I know they’re going to be pestering me like crazy. And by talking to you, it’s going to lock me out of the cycle for 2024.”

Thiel also called Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election “not helpful,” and reportedly told Gellman that while Trump “did not turn out to be the revolutionary Thiel had hoped he might be,” he would not “refashion himself a Never Trumper in retrospect.”

In April, it was reported that Thiel would not fund any candidates in 2024 because he had grown sick of politics and the culture war.

However, in May, Thiel expressed support for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who he said would “make a terrific president.”