Leaked files show the invite-only network grades members by their money and fame, shaping who's in, who's out, and who pays. Dialog, the private network cofounded by Peter Thiel, grades its event attendees on a hidden scale, ranking them by wealth and fame, tracking their relationships, and using algorithms to help decide who they should meet, who they should sit with, and who no longer belongs, WIRED has learned. The records are part of a trove of internal data received by WIRED from a confidential source, containing the personal information of nearly 200 prominent people scheduled to attend the group's annual retreat this summer. The data includes home addresses, private phone numbers and email accounts, dates of birth, photos, and emergency contacts, as well as food allergies and the political leanings volunteered by some members. The records are distinct from a list of people affiliated with Dialog that was left exposed on the organization's website and has been circulating online since earlier this week--a looser directory that appears to include nonmembers, such as Maryland governor Wes Moore, a former event speaker, and other outside guests who passed through Dialog's orbit, in some cases years ago.

On today's, we dive into the dysfunction in Meta's newly formed AI unit and why it's been driving already-low employee morale even further into the ground. This week on, our hosts discuss the meltdown that has been recently unfolding at Meta and what it says about the company's relentless ambitions in the AI race. They also dive into the leaked messages and names of an invite-only group cofounded by billionaire tech founder Peter Thiel, and how Sam Bankman-Fried is now actively seeking a pardon from the Trump administration. Plus, they share their impressions on SpaceX acquiring Cursor and the latest on the negotiations between Anthropic and the government. 'Tell Him He's a Piece of Shit': Meta's New AI Unit Is a Total Mess Write to us at [email protected] . You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how: If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link . Before we start, two quick things. If you've been enjoying listening to the show, we would appreciate it if you took a second to rate it in your podcast app of choice. It really helps us reach more people. And second, if you have any questions related to tech, privacy, or politics that you would like me, Zoë, and Leah to take on, now is the time to submit them to [email protected] . It doesn't matter how big or how small, we want to hear from you and get you answers. Today on the show, we're talking about the dysfunction in Meta's newly formed AI unit and why it's been driving employee morale, which was already very, very low, even further into the ground. We'll also break down the recent online leak that shed light on Peter Thiel's invite-only group, Dialog, more than 200 names of high profile people in government, tech, academia, beyond are listed in the documents as members and guests of this secretive society, not to mention a look at what they talk about behind closed doors.

More than 200 of the world's elites registered for a retreat whose agenda runs from panels on cult-building and sex to prepping for World War III. An associated app offers matchmaking. A trove of internal records from a secret society for powerful figures in US politics, finance, and tech was left exposed online, WIRED has confirmed, naming participants in its events and revealing sensitive personal details they were assured would stay private. The group, called Dialog, is a private, invitation-only organization cofounded in 2006 by the billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel . It convenes US officials, foreign government figures, and Silicon Valley executives at off-the-record annual retreats. Dialog has spent two decades declining to disclose its members.

Plus: Anthropic is now valued higher than OpenAI. How a new extraction process could unlock the world's lithium A new method for extracting lithium could cut costs and emissions from one of the world's most important materials for EVs and energy storage. The technique uses a weak acid to dissolve silicate minerals. That frees not only the lithium but also other useful materials, including alumina and silica. "At scale, we believe this will be the lowest-cost way of sourcing lithium in the world," says Yet-Ming Chiang, an MIT professor who co-authored a study of the process published yesterday in . Startup Rock Zero is already working to commercialize the research.

The latest batch of Jeffrey Epstein files shed light on the convicted sex offender's ties to Silicon Valley--and Peter Thiel's exacting approach to food. Peter Thiel--the billionaire venture capitalist, PayPal, and Palantir cofounder, and outspoken commentator on all matters relating to the "Antichrist"--appears at least 2,200 times in the latest batch of files released by the Department of Justice related to convicted sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein . The tranche of records demonstrate how Epstein managed to cultivate an extensive network of wealthy and influential figures in Silicon Valley. A number of them, including Thiel, continued to interact with Epstein even after his 2008 guilty plea for solicitation of prostitution and of procurement of minors to engage in prostitution. The new files show that Thiel arranged to meet with Epstein several times between 2014 and 2017.

Elon Musk receives a golden key from Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington DC on 30 May 2025. Elon Musk receives a golden key from Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington DC on 30 May 2025. I myself have a cold. Today, we are looking back at the biggest stories in tech of 2025 - Elon Musk's political rise, burst, and fall; artificial intelligence's subsumption of the global economy, all other technology, and even the Earth's topography; Australia's remarkable social media ban; the tech industry's new Trumpian politics; and, as a treat, a glimpse of the apocalypse offered by one of Silicon Valley's savviest and strangest billionaires. Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends a memorial service for slain far-right commentator Charlie Kirk at State Farm Stadium, in Glendale, Arizona, on 21 September 2025.

I sound Korean--because I am Korean. Can AI make me sound American? It all began, as these things often do, with an Instagram ad . "No one tells you this if you're an immigrant, but accent discrimination is a real thing," said a woman in the video. Her own accent is faintly Eastern European--so subtle it took me a few playbacks to notice.

On this episode of, we break down some of the week's best stories, covering everything from Peter Thiel's obsession with the Antichrist to the launch of OpenAI's new Sora 2 video app. All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links. In today's episode, Zoë Schiffer is joined by WIRED's senior culture editor Manisha Krishnan to run through five of the best stories we published this week--from how federal workers are being told to blame Democrats for the government shutdown to Peter Thiel's ongoing obsession with the Antichrist. Then, Zoë and Manisha break down the news of OpenAI launching a new social app for AI-generated videos. Write to us at uncannyvalley@wired.com . You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how: If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link . Today on the show, we're bringing you five stories that you need to know about this week. Including our scoop of how OpenAI just launched a social app dedicated completely to AI-generated videos. I'm joined today by our Senior Culture Editor, Manisha Krishnan. Our first story is about the thing that I feel like our whole newsroom is talking about, possibly the whole country is talking about.

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. For a full two years now, the billionaire has been on the circuit, spreading his biblically inflected ideas about doomsday through a set of variably and sometimes visibly perplexed interviewers. He has chatted onstage with the economist podcaster Tyler Cowen about the (the scriptural term for "that which withholds" the end times); traded some very awkward on-camera silences with the New York Times columnist Ross Douthat; and is, at this very moment, in the midst of delivering a four-part, off-the-record lecture series about the Antichrist in San Francisco. Depending on who you are, you may find it hilarious, fascinating, insufferable, or horrifying that one of the world's most powerful men is obsessing over a figure from sermons and horror movies. But the ideas and influences behind these talks are key to understanding how Thiel sees his own massive role in the world--in politics, technology, and the fate of the species. And to really grasp Thiel's katechon-and-Antichrist schtick, you need to go back to the first major lecture of his doomsday road show--which took place on an unusually hot day in Paris in 2023. No video cameras recorded the event, and no reporters wrote about it, but I've been able to reconstruct it by talking to people who were there. The venue was a yearly conference of scholars devoted to Thiel's chief intellectual influence, the late French-American theorist René Girard. On the evening of the unpublicized lecture, dozens of Girardian philosophers and theologians from around the world filed into a modest lecture hall at the Catholic University of Paris. And from the dais, Thiel delivered a nearly hourlong account of his thoughts on Armageddon--and all the things he believed were "not enough" to prevent it. By Thiel's telling, the modern world is scared, way too scared, of its own technology. Our "listless" and "zombie" age, he said, is marked by a growing hostility to innovation, plummeting fertility rates, too much yoga, and a culture mired in the "endless Groundhog Day of the worldwide web." But in its neurotic desperation to avoid technological Armageddon--the real threats of nuclear war, environmental catastrophe, runaway AI--modern civilization has become susceptible to something even more dangerous: the Antichrist. According to some Christian traditions, the Antichrist is a figure that will unify humanity under one rule before delivering us to the apocalypse. For Thiel, its evil is pretty much synonymous with any attempt to unite the world. "How might such an Antichrist rise to power?" Thiel asked.

It would be hard to overstate the impact that Peter Thiel has had on the career of Sam Altman. After Altman sold his first startup in 2012, Thiel bankrolled his first venture fund, Hydrazine Capital. Thiel saw Altman as an inveterate optimist who stood at "the absolute epicenter, maybe not of Silicon Valley, but of a Silicon Valley zeitgeist." As Thiel put it, "If you had to look for the one person who represented a millennial tech person, it would be Altman." Each year, Altman would point Thiel toward the most promising startup at Y Combinator–Airbnb in 2012, Stripe in 2013, Zenefits in 2014–and Thiel would swallow hard and invest, even though he sometimes felt like he was being swept up in a hype cycle.