PALANTIR boss Peter Thiel was privately hosted by the British Museum for a viewing of the Bayeux tapestry, it has been reported.
The Guardian revealed that the tech billionaire, a supporter of Donald Trump, was given a VIP viewing of the tapestry, which is yet to open to the public, on August 18.
Charlotte Appleyard, the museum’s director of development, is understood to have hosted the viewing for the PayPal founder.
The museum confirmed to the newspaper that the visit took place, and it has also been reported that museum chair George Osborne – the former Tory chancellor – was aware of the viewing but did not attend with Thiel.
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Senior museum leaders were reportedly warned about the possible public perception of giving special treatment to a man with connections to the late convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Palantir has also come under criticism for its links to the Israel Defence Forces and the £670 million in contracts it has with the UK Government. The company focuses on cloud storage and surveillance technology, and has been used by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) to target, identify and locate immigrants in the US.
According to the Guardian, staff were concerned that scarce “lux hours” for the historical tapestry were given to someone with no known interest in the museum.
The museum measures light intensity and exposure time to track and limit the cumulative light damage that can occur to sensitive artefacts.
The exhibition gallery is still under construction and only limited viewings of the tapestry have been made possible to a range of stakeholders.
Osborne and his podcast co-host Ed Balls will reportedly record the next episode of their Political Currency show from the gallery.
The British Museum has agreed light-house allocation for the tapestry in partnership with French colleagues. The Guardian reports no light hours have been taken from the allocation for public visitors, and that Thiel is not a donor to the museum, nor has any money been received from him or his various businesses.
Members of the public who wished to view the tapestry faced queuing online for up to nine hours to get tickets when they first went on sale earlier this summer.
Around 40,000 people were queuing in the mid-morning, with the figure rising to almost 80,000 by mid-afternoon.
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The next wave of public tickets to view the tapestry will go on sale at October 21, at 10am.
Guests at One Aldwych hotel, where rooms cost more than £1000 a night, can get tickets without joining online queues.
Thiel recently appeared in the news for hosting a series of lecturers about who the antichrist could be and warning that Armageddon is coming.
The Epstein Files revealed that Thiel remained in contact with the disgraced financier for years after he was convicted for soliciting prostitution from a child.
The files showed multiple references to lunches and meetings between the pair from 2014 onwards.
The Southern Trust Company, Epstein’s firm, also invested about £29.5m ($40m) in a venture fund co-founded by Thief.
Correspondence from 2018 shows Epstein inviting Thiel to visit him in the Caribbean. Thiel has said he never visited Epstein’s island and there is no suggestion he was involved in Epstein’s sexual abuse or trafficking.
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