The guest list of one of the world’s most elite and secretive social clubs has been exposed.
Known only as ‘Dialog’, the private organization was founded in 2006 by controversial US billionaire Peter Thiel.
According to Wired, each year Dialog gathers a mix of Silicon Valley executives, government figures, and Hollywood players for an off-the-record conference and retreat to socialize and network.
Guests and members also attend sessions focused on tech, geopolitics, and even sex.
According to Wired and The Hollywood Reporter, some of the sessions include titles like ‘Money (Does?) Buy Happiness’, ‘Build-a-Cult’, ‘Bring Back Nuclear’, and ‘How’s Your Sex Life?’, and ‘Navigating WWIII’.
Some of the power players invited this year include Elon Musk, Jared Kushner, Senator Ted Cruz, Treasury secretary Scott Bessent, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan, Xbox president Sarah Bond, and OpenAI president Greg Brockman.
The guest list of billionaire Peter Thiel’s secretive social club Dialog has been leaked
An eclectic mix of celebrities are also on the guest list this year, including actor Josh Brolin, record executive (and boyfriend of Sydney Sweeney) Scooter Braun, and actors Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Sophia Bush.
Oscar-winning composer Benj Pasek, A24 partner Scott Belsky, Family Guy writer Teresa Hsiao, New York Times journalist Ezra Klein, and Hype America CEO Isaac Lee also appear on the list.
It should be noted that both Gordon-Levitt and Bush have interests outside of Hollywood.
Gordon-Levitt is a co-founder of the Creators Coalition on AI and has been politically active in calling for AI regulation, while Bush is a general partner and investor at Union Heritage, a majority African American and women-owned venture capital firm.
After news of his involvement in Dialog went viral on Wednesday, Gordon-Levitt issued a lengthy statement on Instagram in response to public backlash.
‘I understand why people have questions and are suspicious. Some of the headlines and posts circulating about this are alarming, if not bizarre. So let me clarify,’ he wrote.
‘I have been to two Dialog conferences. But, I do not know Peter Thiel. I’ve never met him. I’ve never spoken with him or his representatives. I’ve never seen him at an event. From what I’ve read about his views, we are political and ideological opposites,’ he continued.
‘At the Dialog conferences I’ve been to, there were a wide variety of people, with a wide variety of opinions, some I agreed with, some I didn’t. I can’t speak to every person named in the reporting, but my experience was not of a single ideological gathering.
‘Over the last couple of years, l’ve been focused on trying to make a positive impact on how the future unfolds, especially when it comes to tech and Al. Part of that work means forming relationships with all kinds of people, trying to understand their perspective, and trying to get them to understand mine. Sometimes it’s productive to engage with those we oppose.’
Joseph Gordon-Levitt has attended Dialog before but publicly stated that he’s never met Thiel before following backlash from his fans
Actress Sophia Bush is another one of the Hollywood stars on the list for the conference
Josh Brolin’s rep told The Hollywood Reporter that the actor ‘would like to know what the f**k he got himself into’ by accepting an invite to the conference
Brolin also responded to The Hollywood Reporter, with a spokesperson telling the publication that the Weapons actor ‘would like to know what the f**k he got himself into’.
This year’s Dialog retreat will be held in August in Dublin, Ireland.
Last year, Axios reported that Dialog was planning to build a campus in the D.C. suburbs for future meetings.
An anonymous source told Axios that, ‘Dialog bills itself as offering global elites the chance to talk candidly across ideological lines, away from their phones and the pressures of social media, the news media, and their stakeholders.’
They continued, ‘Given declining trust in institutions and anti-establishment fervor, the group actively keeps its inner workings secretive and hidden from public scrutiny.’
The source added that the group’s “secretive nature allows participants to share controversial and concerning ideas that they would not be comfortable sharing elsewhere.’
Senator Ted Cruz is another political power player on the guest list
Elon Musk is said to be a member of the secretive club
Back in March, Thiel hosted a series of closed-door lectures in Rome on the doorstep of the Vatican, focused on the concept of the Antichrist.
The invitation-only conference banned all recording devices.
Thiel, 58, a billionaire entrepreneur and political donor best known for co-founding PayPal and Palantir, was reportedly outlining his personal philosophy about the potential emergence of an Antichrist and the threat of Armageddon.
The Antichrist is a figure in Christian theology believed to be a powerful deceiver who will oppose Jesus Christ and lead many people away from the faith before the end of the world.
Thiel delivered a similar series in San Francisco last year in which he argued that an Antichrist figure could rise to power by exploiting fears of global catastrophes.
In those talks, Thiel suggested such a leader could promise to prevent existential threats, such as nuclear war, artificial intelligence risks or climate disaster, while using those fears to justify the creation of a one-world government.
Thiel, who co-founded PayPal in 1998, and other entrepreneurs of that era were part of a group dubbed the ‘PayPal Mafia,’ including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, and YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen.
After PayPal was sold to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion, Thiel founded the hedge fund Clarium Capital Management and helped launch Palantir Technologies, which recently inked an agreement with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to streamline the process of identifying and deporting people the agency is targeting.
Thiel, who is a donor to US President Donald Trump, recently relocated to Argentina.
According to the New York Times, Thiel purchased a mansion in one of Buenos Aires’ most exclusive neighborhoods amid concerns about the direction of the United States.
Thiel and his financier husband Matt Danzeisen are believed to have enrolled their children in a local school.
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