During a June 2025 appearance on Ross Douthat's podcast Interesting Times, billionaire investor and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel launched into an extended meditation on the coming of the Antichrist, the moral bankruptcy of globalism and whether humans deserve to exist at all.

According to many reactions, Thiel appeared to stumble through some of Douthat's questions, and by the time Ross asked him whether he hoped the human race would survive, Thiel looked like he was trying to choose his words carefully.

For those who missed it, here's a recap of Peter Thiel on the Antichrist and why the interview is generating memes online.

What Was Peter Thiel's Interview With Ross Douthat About?

Peter Thiel is one of Silicon Valley’s richest ideologues, best known for bankrolling surveillance tech, libertarian ventures and lawsuits against the press. Ross Douthat, a devout Catholic and conservative, writes for the New York Times' Opinions department and is an author.

On June 26th, 2025, Douthat posted an hour-long interview with Thiel on his NYT podcast Interesting Times with Ross Douthat. The episode, titled "Peter Thiel and the Antichrist," gathered over 180,000 YouTube views within four days.

Thiel used the conversation to cover his usual talking points: technology is stagnating, AI is overrated and civilization is one world government away from apocalypse.

At the 45-minute mark, Douthat asked, "Wouldn't the Antichrist be using the tools you’re building?" Thiel paused. "There are all these different scenarios. I obviously don’t think that’s what I’m doing."

Later, when Douthat asked if he hoped the human race would survive, Thiel hesitated again and replied that he wasn’t "opposed to that."

His flushed complexion did not inspire confidence in his statements, and online, people started speculating about how much faith the tech billionaire really had in the human race.

What Were People's Reactions To Peter Thiel's Response To The 'Antichrist' Question?

What many online perceived as Peter Thiel's dodgy answers and flustered appearance made for some cutting meme fodder as the interview garnered widespread attention online in late June 2025.

For instance, on June 27th, X user @jasonwblakely wrote, "Watch Ross Douthat realize for a moment in real time that he's spent a decade making ideological bedfellows with a techno-futurist, fascist Right that wants to see the birth of a 'machine god' & is in no way enthusiastic about the survival of the human race in universal terms."

On June 28th, X user @bdquinn chimed in, asking, "What is Peter Thiel doing to his body to make him look like that? He looks like garbage," gathering over 7,000 likes in two days.

Yesterday, June 29th, Twitter user @sidereal111 then posted a screenshot with the caption, "tfw the interviewer hits you with tricky gotchas like 'are you the antichrist?' and 'do you hope the human race continues to exist?'" The post gained over 48,000 likes in a day.

AI image edits quickly followed, with X users @sterlingcrispin and @acidhorizonpod photoshopping Thiel into cursed selfies alongside the Rizz 'Em With The 'Tism Girl and a Hat-man variant of a J.D. Vance meme, respectively.

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For the full history of Peter Thiel and the Antichrist Ross Douthat Interview, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.