Former PayPal CEO Peter Thiel's secret society exposed in data leak

For nearly 20 years, Dialogue kept its membership invisible. That changed this week. A data leak has exposed the inner circle of the invitation-only society co-founded by the former PayPal CEO and billionaire investor Peter Thiel in 2006, revealing a roster that spans NATO's top military commander in Europe, sitting US senators, Silicon Valley founders, and a sitting university president.

The records were first surfaced by Swiss hacktivist maia arson crimew and independently verified by Wired.

Who's in Thiel's elite network?

The breach wasn’t necessarily an elaborate hacking scheme but a simple lapse in security. As per Wired, a list containing the names of 222 participants set to meet at Dialogue's annual meeting in Dublin, Ireland, later this month had been found encoded in the HTML code of the website itself and could be seen by all who looked at it.

crimew, the woman who first uncovered the US government’s “No-Fly” list, an anonymous source told her about the directory. The database contained private access tokens which acted as passwords to enter their site. It is to be noted that Wired chose not to reveal the passwords.

According to Wired, General Alexus Grynkewich, the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, had been a part of the group since 2021. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Sen. Ted Cruz were also on the list along with Joe Lonsdale, who co-founded Palantir.

In another leaked document of 113 members, which was released by Crimew, Jonathan Levin, the president of Stanford University; Sen. Cory Booker; Elon Musk; and writer Ezra Klein were named, as mentioned by The Stanford Daily.

No one among the 222 attendees reportedly used official email addresses to sign up for the gathering, choosing instead personal or work-related email accounts.

The leaked list shows a group where off-the-record meetings span the geopolitical to the deeply personal. Names on their agenda include "Navigating WWIII," "Build-a-Cult," and more. The society is said to have a dating app among themselves, referred to as one that provides "Meaningful Connections for Exceptional People". They even ask members to declare if they "are looking for love".

The list also noted each individual’s political preference with the clear understanding that it would not be disclosed to anyone. It was disclosed anyway.