One of President Donald Trump's most high-profile backers has quietly gotten citizenship in another country, according to a report from New Zealand Herald.
PayPal co-founder and billionaire investor Peter Thiel has New Zealand citizenship, and his company has bought a large swath of property in New Zealand, the New Zealand Herald reported on Tuesday, citing property records. Thiel has been involved with New Zealand business for almost a decade now, setting up a VC firm there in 2009 and making several startup investments, according to Business Insider.
CNBC reached out to Thiel and the New Zealand government for comment, but they were not immediately available. New Zealand does allow dual citizenship, though it's unclear what arrangement Thiel may have. On Wednesday, a spokeswoman for New Zealand's Overseas Investment Office confirmed with The New York Times that Thiel showed the office documentation that proved he was a New Zealand citizen.
A thread of nationalism has run throughout Trump's campaign and has continued into the nascent administration. On Monday, Trump declared the day of his inauguration "National Day of Patriotic Devotion."
Thiel himself has called some types of globalization a "bubble."
"Globalization may end by accident or by terrible miscalculation: It may end by world war," Thiel wrote in 2008. "Because there would be no winners in a new world war, every path away from globalization will end in catastrophe."
Reports of Thiel's citizenship comes after The New Yorker's recent story revealed that Thiel was among clients of a New Zealand real estate agent. The New Yorker's story focused on super-rich technology executives that are preparing for "doomsday."