Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech investor who co-founded PayPal and contributed $1.25 million to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, added his two cents to the new refugee ban Saturday.
The tech industry has been outspokenly against it, with statements flooding the Internet Saturday from Google, Microsoft, Uber, Airbnb, Tesla, Apple and other companies.
Thiel, who rarely gives interviews and sits on the board of directors of Facebook, released a statement from his spokesman Jeremiah Hall. “Peter doesn’t support a religious test, and the administration has not imposed one.”
The order calls for halting admission of Syrian refugees indefinitely and banning immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the U.S., a move Trump says will make America safer from terrorism. Civil rights groups have condemned the order as illegally targeting people on the basis of religion, and the ACLU had already filed suit to block Trump’s ban.
Thiel has a reputation in Silicon Valley as a contrarian who often wins at his odd bets, and his support of Trump has reinforced that reputation.
Click here to read more.
SOURCE: USA Today, Jefferson Graham
BCNN1 WP 