The Marionettes of Silicon Valley - How Peter Thiel and Rockbridge Undermine America’s Health Policy

Our research reveals how Jim O’Neill, Peter Thiel, Rockbridge and Leonard Leo are undermining America’s health policy. It is a scene that resembles a political drama: In Atlanta, hundreds of CDC employees stand in front of headquarters, applauding, shouting “USA, not RFK” and bidding farewell to the last scientists who stood up against political pressure. Inside in Washington, Jim O’Neill takes the oath of office - not a doctor, not an epidemiologist, but an investment man from Silicon Valley. And now the new strongman at the CDC. This rise is not the result of expertise, but part of a far-reaching network: Peter Thiel’s foundations, funds and think tanks, linked with Rockbridge, which channels Republican money into political projects. Jim O’Neill is a product of this system - and now in one of the most sensitive positions in US health policy. Under the title “The Architecture of Control: How Peter Thiel’s Data Power and the Political Network Rockbridge Undermine Democracy” - https://kaizen-blog.org/en/die-architektur-der-kontrolle-wie-peter-thiels-datenmacht-und-das-politische-netzwerk-rockbridge-die-demokratie-untergraben/ and “The Shadow Files - Palantir, the Invisible State Within the State” - https://kaizen-blog.org/en/die-schattenakten-palantir-der-unsichtbare-staat-im-staat/

President Trump has appointed the closest deputy of RFK Jr., the Thiel confidant Jim O’Neill, as acting director of the CDC. This happened just one day after Trump dismissed the previous CDC director Susan Monarez - because she resisted the withdrawal of the COVID vaccines. The CDC is the top US public health agency for disease control and public health - but O’Neill has no medical training whatsoever.

O’Neill headed the Thiel Foundation from 2009 to 2012, founded the Thiel Fellowship, which provides “dropouts” with $100,000, and initiated Breakout Labs, an experimental field for risky research. He then moved on as Managing Director to Mithril Capital, the growth fund founded by Thiel that pumped billions into projects like Palantir. Before that he was at Clarium Capital, Thiel’s hedge fund. He also appeared on the board of the Seasteading Institute - that vision of floating societies beyond state control, which Thiel financed with half a million dollars. Later he became CEO of the SENS Research Foundation, which pursued anti-aging projects and has been supported by Thiel for years. All these stations show: O’Neill was never an independent actor, but always embedded in Thiel’s political and financial structures.

When Trump now - at the suggestion of RFK Jr. - promoted him to the top of the CDC, it was no surprise. As early as 2016 he was being considered as a Thiel confidant for the post of FDA chief. Now, with Trump back in the White House and Kennedy as Secretary of Health, the choice fell on O’Neill. Our research revealed that it was precisely Rockbridge, that network for bundling conservative investor funds, that exerted pressure behind the scenes to place people in key institutions who are guided not by science but by ideology.

The consequences are dramatic: Susan Monarez, a long-time scientist, refused to rubber-stamp Kennedy’s anti-vaccine commission. She wanted transparency and public debate instead of political decrees. For that she was fired after only a few weeks. Debra Houry, Daniel Jernigan and Demetre Daskalakis resigned with her - in protest against the undermining of scientific work.

What we are now experiencing is the systematic restructuring of the health agencies. A vaccine committee that for decades set objective standards was dismissed by Kennedy and replaced by skeptics. On September 18 it is to vote on vaccinations against measles, hepatitis, mumps and rubella. Senator Bill Cassidy openly speaks of “lack of legitimacy.” But in the White House only loyalty counts. Susan Monarez

The evidence for O’Neill’s role is clear - and it is in our hands. Documents, annual reports and Senate records show: Thiel financed, O’Neill executed. What sounds like a conspiracy is in reality soberly documented. That is precisely why it is so dangerous: This is not about insinuations, but about tangible personnel policy that puts health and lives at risk.

Our research also shows: Thiel used his networks not only in the US, but also in Europe. An official Bundestag document (Drucksache 20/5393) records a meeting at the Federal Chancellery on June 8, 2016 between Peter Altmaier, Peter Thiel, Michael Kratsios and Jens Spahn, then Parliamentary State Secretary in the Ministry of Finance. This memorandum is a rare official testimony of how closely Thiel docked onto political circles in Berlin years ago. Peter Thiel, Michael Kratsios und Jens Spahn, damals Parlamentarischer Staatssekretär im Finanzministerium. Diese Aktennotiz ist ein seltenes offizielles Zeugnis, wie eng Thiel schon vor Jahren in politische Kreise in Berlin andockte.

The picture that emerges is frighteningly clear: A network of foundations, funds and think tanks has infiltrated the American state - and the CDC, the nation’s top health authority, is now part of this takeover.

Leonard Leo - the Architect in the Shadows

Anyone who wants to understand the threads that are woven behind Jim O’Neill’s rise inevitably comes across one name: Leonard Leo. A man who never stands in the spotlight of elections, but builds networks in the background, shifts money and places judges - and in doing so has changed the political foundations of the US like hardly anyone else. Leo has been the key figure of the Federalist Society for decades, that conservative legal network which, in close cooperation with Republicans and donors, shifted the Supreme Court majority to the right. The appointment of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett bears his signature. But his power goes far beyond the judiciary.

With Teneo, Leo created an exclusive network for young conservative elites, entrepreneurs and billionaires from Silicon Valley. The mission: to raise a new generation that will permeate politics, media and business in the long term. Teneo is not just a think tank - it is a training ground. And it is closely connected to Project 2025, that ultra-conservative master plan that envisions deregulation of the state, the weakening of institutions and the repopulation of the administration in the event of a Republican presidency. Peter Thiel was one of the first tech billionaires to connect through Teneo. This completes the arc to Jim O’Neill, Thiel’s long-time confidant and follower, who now stands at the center of American health policy. Teneo provided the platform to link the financial and political interests of billionaires with the political agenda of Project 2025 - Leonard Leo as the string-puller, Thiel as financier, O’Neill as executor.

So erklärt sich, warum ein Mann ohne medizinische Ausbildung plötzlich die CDC führt: Nicht Kompetenz, sondern Netzwerkloyalität entscheidet. Leo liefert das ideologische Gerüst, Thiel die Finanzen, Rockbridge die politischen Hebel – und O’Neill ist das Gesicht, das diese Machtübernahme nach außen trägt.