I'm Hana Rosen, this is Radio Atlantic. I remember seeing Peter Teal speak during the 2016 Republican Convention and being

interested in that but also kind of confused.

Good evening I'm Peter Teal I build companies and I support people who are building new things

from social networks to rocket ships. I'm not a politician, but neither is Donald Trump.

What was this man known for being obsessed with the fantastical future, a billionaire

founder of PayPal, early investor in Facebook, a guy who dreamed of

living on Mars. What was he doing in this room full of Nastalgics.

We don't accept such incompetence in Silicon Valley and we must not accept it from our government.

In that 2016 speech he complained about fake debates and pointless culture war fights.

When I was a kid, the great debate was about how to defeat the Soviet Union. Now we are told, now we are

told that the great debate is about who gets to use which bathroom. This is a distraction from our real problems. Who cares?

This was an interesting choice for a room full of Trump supporters.

Teal seemed like a man testing on a new kind of political influence.

During Trump's transition,

Teal kept an office in Trump Tower, but over time he became disenchanted with the former president.

Trump did not turn out to be the revolutionary Piel had hoped he might be.

Still, Tiel kept giving talks in front of conservative

crowds, testing out applause lines about say the quest for diversity and how it's

evil and silly or how the humanities have become transparently ridiculous, as he put it.

In this campaign, Teal hasn't given any pro-Trump speeches or publicly said who he will support.

It's unsettling, like having a panther lurking under the American political system,

funding who knows what.

...