In his Sunday TV appearance, Peter Thiel said that he believes Google needs to be investigated by both FBI and CIA due to the company’s treasonous, as he put it, decision to work not with the US government but with the Chinese military instead. As is often the case in such, err, cases, Thiel has no evidence of Google’s wrongdoing: nevertheless, billionaire investor implied that not only the company is working for China, but that it has also been infiltrated by Chinese spies. The only real backing for Thiel’s opinion – at least only real backing that is known to the public – is Google’s plans to build a censored search engine for China, a project known internally as ”Dragonfly”. In addition to this, Google has decided not to renew a contract that it had with the US Department of Defense, which allowed the Department to use Google’s artificial intelligence tools in drone footage analysis.

Google’s response to the accusations was short: ”As we have said before, we do not work with the Chinese military”. Critics of Thiel’s actions point out to him lashing against a multibillion dollars company with no evidence, while his supporters point to how Thiel has already proven his commitment to national security by helping the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in the past.