Peter Thiel, the venture capitalist who introduced Vance to Silicon Valley more than a decade back and spent a record-breaking $15m to ensure he succeeded in becoming a senator in Ohio, is a co-founder of Palantir Technologies, the CIA-backed analytics firm currently playing a key role in Israel’s war on Gaza.

Thiel owns eight percent of Palantir, which is valued at around $69bn.

Palantir’s Thiel was initially thrust into the national spotlight in July when Vance was announced as the Republican Party’s vice presidential nominee in July. But his links to Israel were only recently highlighted when a video of him fielding questions over the use of AI arms in Gaza went viral on social media.

The video from an event at Cambridge University back in May shows Thiel stumbling as he attempts to explain and defend his company’s role as well as Israel’s use of AI machinery to generate kill lists during the current war on Gaza.