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The UK government has refused to disclose details of a meeting between American billionaire Peter Thiel and a former minister on the grounds that doing so could harm “diplomatic relations” between Britain and the US.
Thiel, a Republican donor and prominent backer of US vice-president JD Vance, met the then-UK investment minister Lord Dominic Johnson in January 2024 to discuss the US and UK “investment environment”.
The UK’s Department for Business and Trade told the Financial Times it would not release full meeting notes because they include information on “Peter Thiel’s views on and approach to a meeting about an important policy issue”.
“Disclosure of the withheld information could prejudice diplomatic relations as the release would undermine the trust and confidence that foreign government[s] place on the UK,” the department said this week in response to a Freedom of Information request.
It added that disclosure “could potentially prejudice UK relations with the US”.
The government released heavily redacted meeting notes and an agenda in response to the FT’s disclosure request. The redactions were made based on exemptions to transparency laws that are ordinarily invoked in relation to communications between UK public authorities and other states, international organisations or “organs of other states”.
The government’s stance will raise questions about the nature of Thiel’s role in dealings with the UK government.
German-born Thiel, chair of data analytics software company Palantir, has developed a formidable network in US government and the Republican party and was a key donor to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Thiel declined to donate to his re-election campaign, however.
A conservative libertarian, Thiel for a time employed Vance in his Silicon Valley venture capital firm and was instrumental in his rise to the White House.
Companies Thiel has co-founded or backed, such as Palantir and Anduril — a defence technology company — have been given significant government contracts on both sides of the Atlantic in areas such as health and defence.
Palantir has won more than $2.7bn in US contracts since 2009, including more than $1.3bn in Pentagon contracts, according to federal records, and has capitalised on a revolving door of executives who have moved between the company and high-level positions in Washington and Westminster.
In the UK, Palantir won contracts worth up to half a billion pounds, including a contract with the National Health Service to manage patient data.
Unredacted portions of the documents relating to the meeting show that Johnson intended to address Thiel’s concerns about the lack of access of Palantir’s defence arm to the European marketplace and pitch the UK as a “world-leading destination and incubator for venture philanthropy”.
Palantir was awarded a £75mn contract with the Ministry of Defence in December 2022.
Thiel expressed pessimism about the UK economy, citing high taxes, low growth and “the fact that growth is driven by real estate rather than innovation like tech”, according to one of the documents.
The meeting served to “develop a relationship” with Thiel, who was referred to as the founder of Thiel Capital, his investment firm, according to briefing notes prepared for Johnson that were titled “Bilateral with Peter Thiel”.
In justifying the withheld portions, the business department said the exchanges between Thiel and Johnson happened “in the immediate period” before the incoming presidential administration at a “very sensitive time” for US politics and for UK-US relations.
At the time of the meeting, the US election was eight months away.
DBT said it had “complied with its obligations under the Freedom of Information Act and information has been withheld in accordance with the Act”.
A spokesman for Thiel did not respond to an FT request about whether Thiel at any time had a mandate to act as a representative of the interests of the US government, electoral candidates or a political party.