PayPal co-founder wants U.S. to look into Google’s China dealings

Thiel suggests a certain level of thuggery to get answers from the search giant

Peter Thiel urged the United States to investigate Google’s ties to China, suggesting the company’s actions were “seemingly treasonous” during a speech in Washington.

Thiel questioned why Google has reportedly been considering operating a search engine in China again while deciding not to renew an artificial-intelligence contract with the Pentagon, according to news reports from the weekend speech, which kicked off the National Conservatism Conference on Sunday.

“Does Google’s senior management consider itself to have been thoroughly infiltrated by Chinese intelligence?” the PayPal and Palantir Technologies cofounder asked during his speech, according to Axios.

Thiel also reportedly said that the questions he raised “need to be asked by the FBI, by the CIA, and I’m not sure quite how to put this, I would like them to be asked in a not excessively gentle manner.”

Google has not returned a request for comment Monday.

Last year, Google employees protested Dragonfly, the company’s reported plans to return to operating a search engine in China, which the company denied as recently as last month. Google in 2010 pulled its search engine out of China over censorship concerns. Googlers also objected last year to Project Maven, a contract that allowed the Defense Department to use the company’s AI for more accurate drone strikes. After the internal pressure, the company said it would not renew the contract and released principles that vow not to knowingly use Google’s AI for harm.

Will the United States government heed Thiel’s call for an investigation? His support of — and $1 million donation to —Donald Trump propelled him into the national spotlight during the Republican National Convention in 2016. He helped convene a White House meeting with tech CEOs as soon as Trump was elected president. Last year, he donated $250,000 to the Trump Victory Committee. At the event over the weekend, he praised Trump’s China tariffs, Bloomberg reported.

Mark Lemley, a professor at Stanford Law School and director of the Stanford Program in Law, Science, and Technology, criticized Thiel’s comments.

“That seems a particularly silly theory given that Google has long been excluded from China,” Lemley said Monday. “I think conservatives are trying to capitalize on the backlash against tech and doing anything they can to point the intelligence agencies away from their own ties to foreign powers.”

But “just because the facts don’t back it up doesn’t mean the Trump administration won’t jump at the chance to try to attack Google,” Lemley added.

Thiel also is a longtime board director at Facebook, one of Google’s biggest rivals.

His comments come as Google, Facebook and other tech giants are facing possible antitrust investigations and ahead of a House Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday on online platforms and market power. Representatives from Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple are scheduled to testify along with academics and others.

In addition, President Trump and other conservatives have been complaining that tech companies are too liberal and discriminate against them. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, has introduced legislation to remove Section 230, a provision of the Communications Decency Act that protects internet companies from liability for content posted by others on their platforms. Hawley is scheduled to speak Tuesday night at the same conference where Thiel spoke.

According to the conference’s website, its goal is to “solidify and energize national conservatives.” National security adviser John Bolton is also scheduled to speak Tuesday.

Thiel’s comments also come amid the U.S. blacklisting of Chinese tech giant Huawei over suspicions that the company poses a national security risk.