Intolerance? American Liberals Are Baying For Peter Thiel’s Blood For Supporting Donald Trump

German-American billionaire entrepreneur Peter Thiel’s financial support of $1.25 million to Republican Party nominee for US Presidency, Donald Trump, has enraged Silicon Valley.

Not long after Thiel made his announcement last week, many from the Valley and elsewhere started calling for a boycott of PayPal, the global online payment systems which Thiel co-founded and led in the role of chief executive officer.

Among the powerful figures from Silicon Valley who are now up in arms against Thiel is Ellen Pao, formerly interim CEO of Reddit and corporate director at Flipboard. She immediately cut ties with Y Combinator, where Thiel is a part-time partner. She said her group, Project Interlude, would no longer be associated with him, as reported by Mail Online.

Pao said Thiel’s donation to Trump wasn’t merely a difference of political opinion but “advocating hatred and violence” and, since “money is power”, “giving more power to someone whose ascension and behaviour strike fear into so many people is unacceptable.”

The New York Times reported that “ tech executives who work with the billionaire investor are being forced to explain why they plan to continue to do business with him.”

But chairman, CEO and co-founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, defended Thiel, who is also a Facebook board member. Zuckerberg’s defence was found on a leaked internal memo, whose authenticity was later confirmed by a Facebook spokesperson to an American news network.

In the memo, Zuckerberg spoke about being open to people who may have very different viewpoints from their own.

Irrespective of whether Zuckerberg’s defence of Thiel is based in a respect for diversity or protection of his own, his message hits the right note. Liberals in Silicon Valley can hate Trump’s guts for his lewd comments on women, business affairs or political views, but acting like the Thought Police and alienating someone who thinks differently reflects poorly on the progressive tech industry, which is itself often under attack for its marginalisation of women and lack of diversity. If indeed Silicon Valley is serious about resolving the latter, it would do well to start by accepting people with different viewpoints, even if they’re vastly different from their own.