Peter Thiel cheered at Republican convention after declaring 'I am proud to be gay'

Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, who made his fortune as a PayPal cofounder and as an early investor in Facebook, paid homage to American business and technology leadership at Thursday's Republican National Convention. He also criticized Hillary Clinton, saying we don't need to see Clinton's emails to know that her "incompetence is in plain sight." But Thiel, whom Gawker publicly outed in 2007, also made history at a Republican presidential convention, telling the people in Quicken Loans Arena: "I am proud to be gay, I am proud to be a Republican, but most of all, I am proud to be an American." The crowd cheered, which is historical in its own way.

"I don't pretend to agree with every plank in our party's platform," Thiel added, but "where we came from" is more important than "who we are." He spoke about America's past technological greatness and the "staggering decline of the country that completed the Manhattan Project." Today, "instead of going to Mars, we invaded the Middle East," Thiel said. "It's time to end the era of stupid wars and rebuild our country." Donald Trump's motto, Make America Great Again, isn't about recapturing the past, he said. "He's running to take us back to that bright future."

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