Emma Bubola and Ryan MacMay 29, 2026 – 4.00pmThe Saturday tournament at the Buenos Aires chess club hosted its usual line-up of players, including an accountant, a college student and schoolchildren. But this time, hunched over the club’s tiny wooden tables with them, was a new entrant: Peter Thiel, a right-wing tech billionaire and Trump donor.Thiel – who, according to one of the participants, “did not play badly” and came in third – had recently decamped from his homes in Los Angeles and Miami to establish a foothold thousands of kilometres away in Argentina’s capital.Subscribe to gift this articleGift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe.Subscribe nowAlready a subscriber? Fetching latest articles
Why Peter Thiel is decamping to the end of the world
His new roots in Argentina are partly spurred by a shared ideology with its president, Javier Milei. Both are averse to taxes, socialism and “wokeness”.
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