PayPal founder v. Pope: Peter Thiel rips into Vatican's AI concerns, suggesting it's just a distraction from church's sex abuse crisis

In the other corner: Chicago-born Robert Francis Prevost, better known as Pope Leo XIV, head of the Vatican, which holds $3 billion in assets. He has 17.8 million followers on X, 14 million on Instagram and an estimated 1.4 billion allies in the the form of adherents to the Roman Catholic Church. The Pope is anti-war.

In May, Pope Leo raised concerns about artificial intelligence in his manifesto Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence. Per NBC, he recommended “disarming AI” — not rejecting it — to prevent it from “dominating humanity.”

He called for greater regulation of AI, particularly around autonomous weapons and warfare.

Thiel came out swinging. Per CNN, he suggested that the Pope was acting as an unintentional “Chinese communist agent,” commenting that China is unlikely to regulate AI, even if the U.S. government were to do so, concluding the Pope is therefore helping the Chinese government.

Now Thiel has gone a step further. He was raised Lutheran, but now calls himself a “small-o orthodox Christian” and has ties to the tech-focused Christian organization ACTS 17.

Per Politico, he’s suggesting the Pope has “ulterior motives” for criticizing AI and also that the pontiff is paving the way for the Antichrist. Belief in the figure of the Antichrist — a false or imposter savior who will wreak havoc on the world just before Jesus’s prophesied return — is part of the tradition in many Christian denominations.

Moneywise has reached out to the Vatican and Thiel (via Palantir) for comment.

Here’s a look at his arguments and what critics say about Thiel’s own possible motives.

Thiel says Pope is trying to score populist points

Politico obtained transcripts and recordings of statements Thiel made this month at a Masonic lodge in Nashville in the latest round of his “Antichrist” lectures.

In his talk, Thiel suggested that it is politically expedient for Pope Leo to criticize AI.

“Many people know that AI is politically unpopular and want to leverage that to boost their own popularity,” he said.

Thiel also said the pontiff “needed something politically popular to distract from the church’s child sex abuse scandals, and he found it in AI.”

Thiel added that by urging regulation of AI at the global level, the Pope could help hasten the establishment of a worldwide totalitarian regulatory regime — opening the door to the Antichrist and the apocalypse.

Tech titan fears end times for unfettered AI growth

Dave Gibson, director of Fordham University’s Center on Religion and Culture, told the National Catholic Register that the billionaire’s criticism of the Pope indicates what he really “feels about anyone who would dare to set any limits on what Peter Thiel wants.”