Are you sure he has more influence? If you were to rephrase this as “why does Peter Thiel get more media coverage than other billionaires” the answer would be very easy.

IIRC Bernard Arnault (number 5) has his paws on a ton of things in Europe, but you don’t hear about it because he’s just not that much of a nut.

Money is not a measure of power. Power is always relational, positional. You can position yourself better and build relationships using money, but you can also waste a lot of it to gain very little power.

It’s ultimately about what actions you enable for the people who side with you, and money is a great enabler, but if we are talking about private entrepreneurs, usually the vast majority of their wealth cannot be freely allocated to political projects, but it’s blocked to generate further capital. The portion you decide to spend to garner political, social and mediatic capital, and how you spend it, matters more than your total wealth.

His sexual relations with musk has given him access to pillow talk that could take down so many people.

Those “richest people” lists are based on publicly known wealth, which is almost exclusively public stocks. There is a lot of dark money out there.

When you’re in the top 5% it doesn’t really matter where you rank. You will never have to worry about money ever again.

He is an oddity that became a tech press darling, i.e. somebody to report on although not everyone liked him, through PayPal and then his Facebook investment. So he occupied more press real estate than other, long forgotten silicon valley or hedge fund founders. But the fact that he was a founder and successful more often than not makes him the embodiment of the American dream. The immigrant kid that didn’t enherit an emerald mine. The investor who didn’t have to rely on daddy’s wealth as much (or only) as 47. He stands out because he actually finished a degree, not like the Zuckerbergs and Gates of this world. I would say he’s more intelligent than some of those people as well, possibly more strategic. And he has opinions, many of which are controversial to say the least. And if Melon Usk is an example of the in-your-face out-of-touch billionaire and Bill Gates an example of the more reserved out-of-touch do-gooder, Thiel is the more reserved out-of-touch do-weird-shitter. He doesn’t mind the limelight but he doesn’t really seek it. The Melon shows no signs any more of any long-term planning. Like a bladder weakened by ketamine use he just pisses all over everything he happens to stand next to. Gates has an agenda and applies his wealth strategically - and whatever your opinion about the good he actually does - the intention is to do good. Thiel is like that but the intention is to do rightwing libertarian stuff. Quietly, if possible. But there are eyes on him because of his past press “career.” And I didn’t know about his sexual orientation until quite recently - why should anybody care? - but my guess is that a weird idea spouting gay conservative cannot escape the prying eyes of a, let’s face it, predominantly heteronormative press completely. And if you mix this all up you can see why his name keeps popping up. Especially when you consider who presses the diet coke button in the white house.

I think a lot of it is that he spends much more strategically and with lots of strings attached. He also does a lot of work to basically indoctrinate folks who aren’t big players and fund them until they are - JD Vance being a prime example. He’s basically developed into a cult leader for rich wannabes and ends up owning their asses.

It’s not about how much money he is holding, it’s about how much he spent and where/to whom.