“Thiel shall not pass”: Queer Gandalfs against Thiel Springer schmoozes

The paleolibertarian tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel will be awarded the Axel Springer Prize on Thursday for his “unparalleled contribution to the resilience of democracy”. The publisher praises the millionaire as a “non-conformist”. This assessment from Mathias Döpfner's publishing house stands in ironic contrast to how Thiel has been campaigning for the abolition of democracy since the beginning of the century. He works closely with right-wing and autocratic politicians, for example in the USA with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President J. D. Vance.

Protests are being called against the award in front of the Springer House on Thursday. Under the motto “Thiel shall not pass”, activists from the Berlin Chaos Computer Club (CCC) are organizing creative protests.

A “teach-in” was scheduled for the afternoon in front of the Springer House. “A sit-in with scientific input,” explains the initiator Christopher Coenen. The political scientist works at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and critically observes the use of Palantir in Baden-Württemberg: There, over 90 percent of the Green Party base voted against the use of Palantir, he reports. At the federal level, only the Left has so far been the critical dissenting voice on AI legislation and against the use of Palantir by the police and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

Scientists from computer science and political science speak at the teach-in. Enno Park deals with Peter Thiel's obsession with the worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien's “Lord of the Rings”. According to Coenen, this is evident not only in the naming of the products - terms like "Palantir" and "Andúril" come from Tolkien's world - but also in the depth layer.

Thiel claims, for example, that the villains from Tolkien's fantasy series, Saroman and Sauron, are misunderstood, says Coenen. He sees this as the origin of the transhumanist ideology and also of Thiel's self-perception as an “Antichrist”.

A rally of queer Gandalfs is supposed to meet in front of the Springer House in the evening. The initiators are calling for people to dress up as queer Gandalfs. This also addresses Thiel's fight against queer realities of life, said spokesman Ludwig Grosser. He hopes for 1,000 participants in front of the Springer House. At least that was the plan: A press spokeswoman told the taz that the police had moved the location of the rally three times on Wednesday alone. Reason: “Peter Thiel wants to park his car in front of it.”

Ludwig Grosser maintains a network for similar protests in Scandinavia and New Zealand. The action on is inspired by the “Thiel shall not pass” protest in Argentina this June, said Grosser. There Thiel cooperates with President Javier Milei, who identifies himself as anarcho-capitalist. This summer, Thiel took up permanent residence in the embassy district of Buenos Aires, Der Spiegel reported.

Eslem Demirel used to work in a “Big Tech” company. Today she is organizing protests against Palantir. Her concern is to inform employees in the tech industry about their rights. At Big Techs like Google, Meta and Amazon, people sign a “Code of Conduct” in order to have a say in the purpose of the software they write themselves. Nevertheless, software is used for war purposes.

Demirel is part of the anti-Israel campaign “No Tech for Apartheid”, which combats the “Project Nimbus” between Google, Amazon and Israel. The campaign educates employees about how they can exercise their right to have a say in the military use of the software they write.

According to Eslem Derimel, one narrative dominates: “The machine is dangerous, so we need more money to make sure no damage occurs.” For Demirel, however, it is more a design decision “whether an AI is put on the Internet or used as a weapon.” She compares it to a bread knife: the designer designs it as a kitchen appliance, but others decide whether it will be used as a murder weapon.