I mean, this could mean something, but it's hardly surprising that Epstein would have wanted to meet with him. Epstein met with lots of rich people, it was sort of like meeting with a salesman. It doesn't mean you like the salesman, or even are interested in buying what they're selling, it just means that the salesman is persistent and skilled at getting a meeting.
Now, if Thiel "bought" what Epstein was selling, or even just continued to meet with him after he realized what Epstein was selling, that would be a story. So far, this doesn't seem like a story.
Is this a common thing among billionaires? Like, any random guy with a few hundred million dollars and a sex trafficking conviction can just say, "I would like to meet with all of the powerful billionaires of Silicon Valley" and make it happen?
It's very interesting, even the NYT seems to be at pains to frame this as "Epstein met with so-and-so," as though he was their patron and not the other way around. But what reason do we have to believe that was so?
I have no direct knowledge of how easy it is to meet with billionaires, but Epstein made it his top priority apparently, and I do expect that billionaires (and current CEO's no less) do meet with a lot of people, so if you are good at getting to meet them you may know how to do that. I mean, I doubt that he got all of his other clients by just saying "hey I run a sex ring of underage girls, you want to meet and talk?" Presumably he had some playbook of pretexts to get the initial meeting or three, and then brought up his actual purpose once he had gotten the impression that it was safe to do so. Thus, he must have had some ability to get on rich people's schedules.
They are/were both financiers. Lots of people will have met with Epstein. Probably a good proportion of people he entertained on his island never were involved in his sexual endeavors. While I'm not a Thiel fan in any way, just meeting a dude seems like thin gruel, a way to say "seems suspicious" without any reason for suspicion at this point. It's not like Thiel and Epstein were fishing in the same pond.
Maybe the story really is that Epstein met with Thiel.
What evidence is there that Epstein was a financier, other than that the press keeps dutifully repeating the claim? The few reporters who tried to look into it weren't able to find any traders or brokers who knew of Epstein or had done any business with him.
There is little question that after he left teqching math he became a money person. He got his money from somewhere, there are questions around how. According to Bloomberg (reasonably reputable) he was a great trader at Bear Stearns and then a money manager. Trader, money manager, and giver of donations to finance stuff. How far away from financier is that in your book?
and if his ill-gotten gains were sufficient he could have started his own private office which is not hard to do at all if you have the money, which then establishes him as a "financier" who would have cover for all sorts of things (nobody cares to look into what you are doing if you run a private office.)
He certainly did financial things for people like help Noam Chomsky move some money around, but again, it's not hard at all to set up to do that. Once you've got a reputation as a "financier", philanthropist, etc. it certainly opens doors for you.
