Netflix CEO let Peter Thiel know damn well what he thought of Donald Trump

"I’m so mystified by your endorsement of Trump for our President."
 By 
Marcus Gilmer
 on 
Netflix CEO let Peter Thiel know damn well what he thought of Donald Trump
The battle of the Valley Titans: Reed Hastings, left, and Peter Thiel, right. Credit: Mashable composite: Left, Masatoshi Okauchi/REX/Shutterstock; Right, Jim Lo Scalzo/Epa/REX/Shutterstock

Remember those heady days of August 2016, just a year ago before the Trump presidency had us genuinely wondering how to prepare for a nuclear attack?

That happened to be when Silicon Valley big shot and New Zealand fanboy Peter Thiel was being pretty vocal about his support for then-candidate Trump, something that sent shockwaves through the tech world.

The Palantir/PayPal/Facebook bigwig who also helped Hulk Hogan take down Gawker has been Trump's most prominent tech backer since the election, too, helping Trump assemble a roundtable of tech's brightest minds.

But some of his peers weren't having it with Thiel's support of Trump. Especially Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, who is part of the Facebook board as well.

In a story focusing on the fallout of that anti-diversity memo from a Google employee, the New York Times dropped this little nugget of a hot-fire email from Hastings to Thiel sent in August 2016 over the latter's backing of Trump.

To review: "I’m so mystified by your endorsement of Trump for our President, that for me it moves from ‘different judgment’ to ‘bad judgment.’ Some diversity in views is healthy, but catastrophically bad judgment (in my view) is not what anyone wants in a fellow board member.”

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn.

Mashable has reached out to reps for both Thiel and Netflix but, while neither commented on the email to the New York Times, the Times notes, "neither challenged the authenticity of the email."

Both still serve on the Facebook board and reports have begun circulating that Thiel's not so hot on that Trump guy these days.

That said, here's hoping it all gets super awkward when Zuckerberg interrupts the next board meeting to announce his own run for president.

Mashable Image
Marcus Gilmer

Marcus Gilmer is Mashable's Assistant Real-Times News Editor on the West Coast, reporting on breaking news from his location in San Francisco. An Alabama native, Marcus earned his BA from Birmingham-Southern College and his MFA in Communications from the University of New Orleans. Marcus has previously worked for Chicagoist, The A.V. Club, the Chicago Sun-Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.

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