Billionaire investor Peter Thiel says the FBI and CIA should investigate Google; calls Google ‘Treasonous’

Billionaire investor and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel has called for a federal investigation into Google for of the company’s “seemingly treasonous” decision to work with the Chinese military instead of the U.S. government, according to a new report from Axios late Sunday. Google denied the claim. “As we have said before, we do not work with the Chinese military,” the spokesperson said.

Thiel wants the FBI and CIA to ask questions of Google, starting with, “how many foreign intelligence agencies have infiltrated your Manhattan Project for AI?” Speaking at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, Thiel listed three questions CIA and FBI should ask Google:

“Number one, how many foreign intelligence agencies have infiltrated your Manhattan Project for AI?

“Number two, does Google’s senior management consider itself to have been thoroughly infiltrated by Chinese intelligence?

“Number three, is it because they consider themselves to be so thoroughly infiltrated that they have engaged in the seemingly treasonous decision to work with the Chinese military and not with the US military… because they are making the sort of bad, short-term rationalistic [decision] that if the technology doesn’t go out the front door, it gets stolen out the backdoor anyway?”

Now, the FBI and CIA should look at Google and ask these questions, “in a not excessively gentle manner,” he reportedly said.

Thiel, whose net worth is estimated at $2.5 billion, is not the only person to have raised suspicion about Google’s alleged contribution to Chinese military technology. Back in March 2019, Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, alleged Beijing’s armed forces “indirectly benefited” from Google’s know-how.