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How often does a tweet, political action or statement by President Trump leave Peter Thiel, a crying, incredulous supporter?
"It does not happen very often," he said.
According to many standard measures, Mr. Thiel has impeccable credentials in Silicon Valley: co-founder of PayPal, a member of Facebook's board of directors since 2005, a partner of venture capital firm Founders Fund, a sponsor of an ocean cleaning project and Bitcoin investor.
But in many ways, he is a man on an island – not just because he has New Zealand nationality.
His frequent defense of Mr. Trump – a position that Reed Hastings of Netflix has described as "catastrophic judgment" – has distinguished much of the technology sector.
At Thursday's DealBook conference, he acknowledged that the current political environment was not "healthy" but said the country was "polarized since the late 1960s" and that Mr. Trump did not Was "not the main cause".
Thiel admitted that conspiracy theories, misinformation and hate speech are hard to conceal Facebook and its affiliate, Instagram, were "certainly disturbing."
"It's a complicated thing to do things right," he said.
And the many baseless, exaggerated or misleading comments from the president on trade, immigration and even his own popularity?
"I tend to think that the inaccuracies reported by President Trump are essentially exaggerations of the truth," said Mr. Thiel.
He also mentioned his move to Los Angeles this year, saying that Silicon Valley "now feels like a one-party state", characterized by "the madness of the crowd".
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