Tech

Billionaire Trump backer Peter Thiel: A lot of Silicon Valley is too uptight about sex

Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and venture capitalist, leaves an elevator at Trump Tower, November 16, 2016 in New York City. President-elect Donald Trump and his transition team are in the process of filling cabinet positions for the new administration.
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Silicon Valley is too politically correct when it comes to sex, Silicon Valley billionaire and Trump supporter Peter Thiel said in an interview with New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd.

Those comments came in response to a question about the controversial Billy Bush tape which came to light during the Trump campaign and revealed Trump's lewd comments about a failed attempt to seduce a married woman.

"One of my friends has a theory that the rest of the country tolerates Silicon Valley because people there just don't have that much sex," he added. "They're not having that much fun." Thiel did also acknowledge that the tape was offensive and inappropriate.

Thiel, who was an early supporter of President-elect Donald Trump and is also on Facebook's Board of Directors, helped orchestrate the meeting between the incoming president and tech leaders from Silicon Valley's biggest companies. At first, people were concerned that no-one else would show up, then they became concerned that they would be the only people not included, he told Dowd.

Peter Thiel on Silicon Valley
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Peter Thiel on Silicon Valley

Though Trump is an avid Twitter user, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was not included in the round table, which upset some people, Thiel admitted. The move was simply a reflection of Twitter's relatively small size and had nothing to do with reports that the company had refused to create a "Crooked Hillary" emoji, Thiel said.

Silicon Valley got far more upset over Trump's surprise win than Manhattan, and is taking longer to bounce back, he said. New York's hedge-funders, by comparison, were far quicker to change their minds once the stock market bounced back, he said.