Founders Fund

In June 2025, Founders Fund led Anduril Industries' $2.5 billion Series G funding round at a $30.5 billion valuation. The $1 billion invested by Founders Fund was the largest single investment in the fund's history. Anduril manufactures autonomous weapons systems including the Altius-700M (tested with live warheads), unmanned aerial systems, and counter-UAS technology. The company is building Arsenal-1, a hyperscale manufacturing facility for autonomous weapons near Columbus, Ohio. Founder Palmer Luckey has embraced Trump's defense policies, stating it's 'good to scare people sometimes.' Founders Fund partner Trae Stephens co-founded Anduril and was considered for Deputy Secretary of Defense.

Founders Fund, co-founded by Palantir chairman Peter Thiel, has been a major investor in Palantir Technologies since its founding in 2003. Palantir built the ImmigrationOS platform for ICE, receiving a $30 million contract in 2025. The Electronic Frontier Foundation reported in January 2026 that ICE uses a Palantir tool that feeds on Medicaid and other government data to identify and track people for arrest. The American Immigration Council documented how the system enables mass surveillance of immigrant communities. Founders Fund's continued investment in and promotion of Palantir directly supports the expansion of government surveillance infrastructure.

Bloomberg reported that more than a dozen people with ties to Peter Thiel and Founders Fund were placed in the Trump administration in 2025. These include Founders Fund partner Trae Stephens (considered for Deputy Secretary of Defense), Anduril executive Colin Carroll (Chief of Staff at DoD), Palantir engineer Clark Minor (CIO at HHS), and David Sacks (White House AI and Crypto Czar). ProPublica reported that GSA fast-tracked a contract process favoring Ramp, a Founders Fund portfolio company invested in across seven rounds. The revolving door between Founders Fund's network and the administration raises conflicts of interest as portfolio companies stand to benefit from government contracts influenced by these appointees.

Peter Thiel, co-founder of Founders Fund, has maintained a consistent 35+ year opposition to diversity and multiculturalism, from founding The Stanford Review in 1987 to explicitly criticizing DEI programs in 2024. In a January 2024 speech at Notre Dame, Thiel addressed DEI and culture wars. His 2009 Cato Institute essay 'The Education of a Libertarian' laid out positions that critics say prefigured the current anti-DEI movement. As of 2025, Founders Fund has minimal female leadership among its partners. The fund's talent pipeline draws heavily from homogeneous networks rooted in Thiel's Stanford Review circle, which critics describe as reinforcing a 'white, male, conservative' ecosystem.

In March 2023, Founders Fund's operations executives moved firm capital out of Silicon Valley Bank and advised portfolio companies to withdraw their deposits. This triggered a cascade of withdrawals that contributed to $42 billion being pulled from SVB in a single day, leading to the bank's collapse on March 10, 2023. The bank run caused widespread panic across the startup ecosystem and required FDIC intervention. Other venture capitalists criticized Founders Fund and Peter Thiel personally for sparking the run. While firms have a fiduciary duty to protect their investments, critics argued that the coordinated withdrawal advice was reckless and caused disproportionate harm to the broader financial ecosystem.