Vance is considered a front man for Thiel, and Thiel - a deep state actor. Thiel is also known of having close ties to US intelligence and DoD; to the infamous Israeli Unit 8200 and their companies; as well as business ties to Jared Kushner through which he maintained a powerful position within Trump administration. (Check
this one)
JD Vance used to be very critical of Trump, including on social media, using epithets like "idiot", "reprehensible", "cultural heroin" among others. It was 2016. But the plan was different, it seems. It was 2016 when Peter Thiel donated to Trump's campaign and then joined Trump's transition team. He kept contributing in 2018, 2020 and eventually in 2022 when he donated $30 million to the senatorial campaign of JD Vance and Blake Masters. Vance himself received a record-breaking amount of money: "
Thiel had given $15 million in total to bolster Vance — the largest amount ever given to boost a single Senate candidate." (Another at least $10 million donation came from Cambrige Analitica co-founder
Robert Mercer.) The same time, there were c
omplaints about illegally coordinating Vance's campaign and a PAC funded by Peter Thiel. On the other hand, the hypocrisy of their campaign promises and declarations is well exposed in
Mother Jones article. Anyway, that's in short how Thiel made JD Vance a politician, and now a VP candidate.
Vance met Thiel in 2011 while studying at Yale Law School, what he later called “the most significant moment of my time at Yale.” A few years later, he worked for Thiel, starting at Mithril Capital, Thiel's VC. In 2020, Vance co-founded Narya Capital with significant Thiel’s backing, envisioning it as "an Ohio-based venture fund that would focus on the Midwest instead of Silicon Valley." In 2021 Narya invested in Rumble, and Thiel paid a leading role in this.
So when Vance the "NeverTrumper" changed into his enthusiastic supporter, he also adopted Trump's (partial) isolationist stance on foreign policy. In February 2022, several days before the invasion, Vance said: “I gotta be honest with you. I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine” which he had to "clarify" afterwards. Vance is also with Trump on everlasting
support for Israel and
fighting antisemitism globally.
The best summary of the whole affair in one sentence comes IMO from
The San Francisco Standard:
Highly recommended:
What Is It About Peter Thiel?
How Peter Thiel-Linked Tech is Fueling the Ukraine War
