According to billionaire Peter Thiel, signs of the antichrist and the coming Armageddon are mounting. We might dismiss these views as fanatical if Thiel did not wield such significant power in the United States and around the world.

• Thiel was the first big name in Silicon Valley to support Donald Trump when he ran for his first term.
• Vice President JD Vance has credited Thiel with shaping him ideologically and religiously.
• In 2003, he cofounded Palantir, a key software company for the U.S. military and its domestic security forces.
• Today, Thiel serves as chairman of the company, while Alex Karp, who called President Trump “an abomination,” serves as ceo.

A man who wields such power needs to be understood, especially one who has extremely odd apocalyptic ideas.

A September report by Wired stated: “Thirty years ago, a peace-loving Austrian theologian spoke to Peter Thiel about the apocalyptic theories of Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt. They’ve been a road map for the billionaire ever since.”

In recent years, Thiel has been giving a lecture series on the antichrist and Armageddon based on these ideas.

The Guardian has an audio file from a lecture Thiel gave last year. Thiel is quoted as saying:

A basic definition of the antichrist: Some people think of it as a type of very bad person. Sometimes it’s used more generally as a spiritual descriptor of the forces of evil. What I will focus on is the most common and most dramatic interpretation of antichrist: an evil king or tyrant or anti-messiah who appears in the end times. …

Now this is not meant to be an anti-British or anti-American lecture. It’s just that America is, at this point, the natural candidate for katechon and antichrist, ground zero of the one-world state, ground zero of the resistance to the one-world state.

Thiel sees a one-world state as the antichrist and the katechon as the one that holds back the antichrist.

Fears of Antichrist and Nuclear War

According to a May 28 New York Times report, Thiel is leaving the U.S. for Argentina. One reason for the move is to flee high taxes. California is pushing a one-time 5 percent wealth tax on assets over $1 billion. This would cost Thiel an estimated $1.4 billion.

Another major reason, the Times says, is his fear of an approaching nuclear war. Fleeing high taxation may be connected. Thiel sees international financial bodies that prevent people from sheltering their wealth in tax havens as a sign of the antichrist and the coming Armageddon. As the Times wrote:

Argentina, a nation relatively insulated from potential conflicts in the Northern Hemisphere, also fits as a potential escape hatch from other risks that Mr. Thiel has publicly warned about—nuclear war and runaway artificial intelligence.

Thiel is not the only one who fears an approaching world war. Martin Varsavsky, a Spanish-Argentine tech entrepreneur close to Thiel, does as well. He has built a ranch in Argentina, which he said could serve as a shelter in case of World War iii. He wrote on social media in 2024:

I used to believe nuclear war was impossible. But as the world divides into U.S.A.+Europe vs. Russia and China I don’t think it’s impossible anymore. This study shows that Argentina is one of the safest places to survive nuclear war and post-nuclear famine.

We at the Trumpet often warn about the approaching nuclear war. Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has a booklet titled Nuclear Armageddon Is ‘At the Door’ (free upon request). This nuclear holocaust is referred to in many biblical passages, such as Matthew 24, where Christ specifically warns that a time of trouble is coming that is so great it risks the survival of mankind. (This prophesied cataclysm is often referred to as Armageddon; the word itself, however, is often misunderstood. Read “What Is Armageddon?” to learn more.)

But what about prophecies of the antichrist? As Tom Holland writes in his book Millenium, these prophecies have motivated Catholics throughout the ages to believe the end is near. Some even fought wars, thinking they were suppressing the forces of the antichrist.

With so much confusion about this topic, what does the Bible actually say about the antichrist?

Truth About the Antichrist

The Apostle Paul prophesied in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4: “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.”

This is clearly an end-time prophecy to occur right before the Second Coming of Christ.

The Apostle John wrote: “Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us” (1 John 2:18-19).

“I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and know that no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son” (verses 21-22; Revised Standard Version). As Mr. Flurry explains in his booklet The Last Hour:

John is talking about “the liar.” … This liar is the son of perdition, or destruction—the antichrist—the man of sin who was revealed in the great falling away, or apostasy (2 Thessalonians 2:3). He is an antichrist who openly and blatantly destroys the truth ….

John witnessed a type of fulfillment of this prophecy, and it gives insight into what we should expect in this end time.

Notice that these antichrists “went out from us.” John experienced a great falling away, just as Paul prophesied. It occurred within God’s true Church and was led by Diotrephes (3 John 9).

Paul also wrote that this man of sin would sit “in the temple of God,” meaning God’s Church (2 Thessalonians 2:4; 1 Corinthians 3:16). Diotrephes did this. As Mr. Flurry wrote, “Diotrephes was a type of the end-time antichrist.”

You can identify the end-time antichrist only if you can identify God’s Church, which Christ called a “little flock” (Luke 12:32).

The vast majority of the world cannot, that’s why we are quickly heading toward the Great Tribulation and the Second Coming of Christ without the world having recognized the antichrist, who is already on the scene!

That’s why the few religious people who believe in this prophecy are utterly confused by it. They are not humble enough for God to teach them. As Christ said in Matthew 11:25, “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.”

If God were to reveal this truth to them, they would be held accountable for it and receive greater condemnation if they were to reject it.

You can prove from your Bible where God’s Church is today. If you do, you will recognize that God used the late Herbert W. Armstrong to restore all things (Matthew 17:11) and to turn the hearts of thousands to God the Father (Malachi 4:4-6). However, after his death, the Church he founded witnessed a great falling away. Most of God’s people failed to hold fast to the biblical doctrines that Mr. Armstrong taught and turned instead to cunningly devised fables.

While Mr. Armstrong was alive, the forces of the antichrist were restrained; after his death, they took over the Church (2 Thessalonians 2:6-7).

This explains why God’s Church in Revelation 12:13-17, represented by a woman, is divided. Some go to a place of safety, where they are protected by God; others go into the Great Tribulation, where they are persecuted by Satan.

Billionaires like Thiel have some level of faith in what the Bible says, but they have mixed this faith with the theology of the world and their own beliefs. Instead of looking to God, they are looking for their own place of safety. This will not protect them from what is coming.

As Mr. Armstrong wrote, “There Is a Way of Escape” and “you can be protected from the impending nuclear nightmare.” But that protection will not come through riches or knowledge. If you want to learn more about the truth of the antichrist, read Mr. Flurry’s free booklet The Last Hour.