The idea of paying taxes now in exchange for the prospect of lower taxes decades in the future struck me as preposterous.

Altman and Musk were OpenAI’s founding co-chairs in 2015, but their relationship has devolved into name-calling and lawsuits.

Like the Valar in the J.R.R. Tolkien books he loves so much—he’s named six companies with terms drawn from the fantasy novels—Thiel is mysterious, powerful, and a little incomprehensible.