Context: Thiel originally made this claim in a speech where he claimed Google is committing "treason." [1] Given his "evidence" that's obviously insane. A large fractions of large multinationals have offices in China. I assume the editors at the Times told him that was a non-starter so he toned it down a bit.

Nowhere in the article does he disclose that he, at one point, owned 10% of facebook, a top competitor of Google's.

Most ironically, Facebook announced they'd open an office in china over a year ago [2].

He makes unsubstantiated claims that technology coming from this lab will be useful in the military before all else etc. He neglects to mention Google's public intent for the office, which has nothing to do with the military [3].

[1] https://www.axios.com/peter-thiel-says-fbi-cia-should-probe-... [2] https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/24/17607992/facebook-allowed... [3] https://ai.google/research/join-us/beijing/