Peter Thiel Defends Calling Warren Buffett ‘Sociopath Grandma from Omaha’

In a recent interview at the Aspen Institute Festival, the billionaire investor Peter Thiel said of his controversial comment where he tagged Warren Buffett as “sociopath grandpa from Omaha.” He made this comment in 2022, and it certainly raised a few eyebrows at the time, as Buffett is highly regarded in the investor community.

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“He laughed a lot,” Thiel said during the interview. He explained that the “sociopathic grandpa from Omaha” comment came during a speech at the Bitcoin conference, where he outlined who he believed to be Bitcoin’s biggest opponents. In addition to Buffett, he also called JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and BlackRock’s Larry Fink. Thiel believes older traditional financial leaders like Buffett are a major obstacle to Bitcoin gaining wider acceptance.

Thiel went on to explain his perspective, saying, “Cryptocurrencies were a revolutionary youth movement, but for them to really take over, you couldn’t just have a student uprising like 1968. You had to bring the rest of society on board. And as long as the old guys were sitting on their hands, that was the big blocker for cryptocurrencies to go to the next level.”

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Asked if he still stands by his observations, Thiel acknowledged that things have changed in the Bitcoin world, particularly with the introduction of a Bitcoin ETF. However, it is uncertain whether Bitcoin still has the same rebellious, anti-establishment vibe it once had. “When people in the FBI tell me they’d rather criminals use Bitcoin than $100 bills, it suggests that maybe it’s not working the way it’s supposed to,” he said.

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Thiel also admitted that while he still owns some Bitcoin, he is not as confident in its future as he once was. “I still have a small position. It can probably still go higher, but it’s going to be a volatile, bumpy ride,” he noted.

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Although his initial comments are controversial and he still stands by them, Thiel seems to be taking it all in stride. For him, the remark about Buffett was part of a larger narrative about the clash between old and new financial systems. And if it made people laugh – and think – so much the better.

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Thiel isn’t the only one who thinks so. SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci also criticized traditional financial leaders who are skeptical of cryptocurrency. Scaramucci suggested that people like Buffett and Dimon either didn’t look into crypto enough or found it too much to handle at this stage in their careers.

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