White House offered Peter Thiel intel adviser post: report

Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist and close ally of President Trump, has had talks to be a top intelligence adviser to the White House, according to a Vanity Fair report on Wednesday.

The magazine cited three unnamed White House officials who said that Thiel was offered the chairman post for the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, which counsels the administration on intelligence matters.

A source told Vanity Fair the offer is now “in limbo,” while another said Trump still wants Thiel in the role.

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Thiel was one of the few major tech executives to endorse Trump during last year’s campaign, and, according to the report, has remained a close adviser to the White House and a key liaison to Silicon Valley.

“People say we don’t have enough heroes, enough courageous people,” Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google parent company Alphabet, told the magazine. “Well, here’s one. Here’s a guy who has had an impact.”

Thiel was a co-founder of PayPal. He is also the chairman of Palantir, a secretive data-mining company with multiple federal contracts and reported ties to intelligence agencies.