An internet site leak has uncovered members in the secretive, Peter Thiel-founded Dialog retreats which incorporates prime politicians from throughout the American divide, officers from overseas nations, different titans of the tech business world and distinguished media figures.
The annual Dialog retreats, which have been in contrast to different quasi-secret elite conferences like the Bilderberg Group and Bohemian Grove since they started in 2006, have had some members revealed in earlier media stories. Pretty little is recognized about the invitation-only occasion, which is often held at luxurious institutions round the world and options organized discussions on world affairs.
The listing signifies a company able to mustering a novel combine of presidency, company and cultural energy, although many names on the listing possible attended Dialog occasions prior to Thiel’s affiliation with the political proper and the Trump period.
The listing was uncovered, apparently unintentionally, in the Dialog web site’s supply code, and was seen in an Web Archive snapshot of the website archived on 15 June. It was first noted by a hacktivist on BlueSky.
The leak was snapshotted on the Web Archive on Monday, the place the Guardian was ready to independently verify the information.
Thiel is a secretive and influential billionaire political svengali and tech investor who lately hit the headlines for hosting a series of lectures philosophizing about who the antichrist may very well be and warning that Armageddon is coming. Thiel has additionally lately grow to be highly effective in conservative politics with shut ties to Donald Trump and JD Vance and has helped bankroll Republicans’ 2026 midterm campaigns.
The leaked Dialog listing consists of governors, senators and congresspeople from each US political events, leaders and officers from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the United Kingdom and Japan and distinguished opinion writers from shops together with the New York Instances, amongst many others.
It’s not clear when the names had been added to the listing and beneath what circumstances, and in what capability these listed participated in Dialog.
The listing has already been the topic of media stories, nevertheless it stays unclear whether or not all the people on it have the similar diploma of involvement with Dialog. A few of these on the listing whom the Guardian contacted had been ready to defend Dialog and its mission, which the group’s website characterizes as the promotion of non-ideological, non-partisan dialog.
Others took pains to distance themselves from the elite networking gatherings, and claimed to have had solely fleeting involvement with the gatherings, which had generally taken place in the distant previous.
The names embody serving Trump administration figures corresponding to White Home workers secretary Will Scharf and Nationwide Science Basis nominee and former CDC performing head Jim O’Neill; conservative-movement rainmaker Leonard Leo and the retired general Stanley McChrystal; company powerbrokers like OpenAI president Greg Brockman and trillionaire Elon Musk, in addition to Neuralink govt and mom of Musk’s kids Shivon Zilis; and writers together with Sam Harris, Steven Pinker, and New York Instances columnists Ezra Klein and Bret Stephens.
Names from past the US embody the Saudi royal and former intelligence chief Turki al-Faisal; former Keir Starmer adviser Matt Clifford and the UK Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat; and Sheikh Nawaf Al-Sabah, the CEO of Kuwait Petroleum.
Separate reporting in Wired journal revealed that this yr’s Dialog occasion, to be held in Dublin this August, will vary throughout matters together with nuclear energy, world conflict 3, intercourse, and cults. It’s not recognized if these on the leaked listing had been audio system, company, or full members of the group.
The Guardian has contacted all members named on this reporting through publicly listed e-mail addresses, or affiliated organizations, to ask about the details of their involvement with Dialog.
Janine Wedel, co-director of the Corruption, Networks, and Transnational Crime Analysis Middle at George Mason College, and the writer of Shadow Elite and different books, stated: “It is in these types of gatherings – the place you may have monetary, tech and political energy coming collectively – that we’re more and more seeing agendas being set and opinions being formed. It’s the place the strongest elites, a cross-section, an interconnected part of the strongest positions, come collectively and form elite opinion.”
Wedel added: “There do appear to be a rising variety of fora concerned in exactly this – transnational gatherings of the strongest monetary, tech and political elites, coming collectively. So I believe it’s an issue for democracy, in essence. We’ve got to give it some thought that manner.”
And the leak connects with different scandals involving the intersection of wealth and energy. Emails released by the House oversight committee present that Dialog’s different founder, tech entrepreneur Auren Hoffman, invited deceased financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to the 2014 convention. It’s not recognized if Epstein attended any Dialog gatherings.
US authorities officers, serving and former
The leaked listing comprises the names of a number of senior Trump administration officers. Dialog’s listing consists of treasury secretary Scott Bessent; military secretary Dan Driscoll; White Home workers secretary Will Scharf; and Jim O’Neill, the former deputy secretary of well being and human providers and a co-founder of Thiel’s fellowship programme).
Two sitting senators are listed – Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, and Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey – alongside the Connecticut Democratic congressman Jim Himes. Two sitting governors additionally seem: Wes Moore of Maryland and Jared Polis of Colorado, each Democrats.
Democrats appeared eager to disassociate themselves from the group.
Jared Polis spokesperson Eric Maruyama wrote in response to a request for remark: “No, Governor Polis is not a member of this group, no matter it is. He does not know why his title is related to the group in any manner or appeared on their web site.”
Maruyama added: “He does not recall ever having attended capabilities hosted by them and has not beforehand heard of them.”
Cory Booker’s spokesperson David Bergstein linked the Guardian to an X post by which he wrote: “Cory is not concerned with this group. Again when he was a mayor he usually attended conferences and talking engagements, and this may need been amongst them. He is not part of this group and has completely no real interest in doing something with them.”
Wes Moore’s spokesperson did not reply straight to the Guardian’s request for remark, however quickly after the request was despatched, the governor took to X to put up “13 years in the past I used to be invited to communicate – to an viewers largely unfamiliar with the experiences of hundreds of thousands of Individuals who grew up like me – about my e book The Different Wes Moore”.
He added: “That was my first and final look at Dialog. By no means met Peter Thiel. Don’t plan to in the future!”
The listing additionally spans figures who’ve moved between authorities and the non-public sector: Robert Hur, the former particular counsel; Lisa Monaco, the former deputy legal professional basic; Julian Castro, the former housing secretary; Preet Bharara, the former US legal professional in Manhattan; Mitch Daniels, the former Indiana governor and Purdue College president; and the retired basic Stan McChrystal.
McChrystal replied to a request for remark in an e-mail, writing that “I did attend two Dialog occasions a few decade in the past however I don’t imagine it constituted ‘membership’. They’ve usually invited me since however I haven’t attended as a result of I’m very busy – not out of any damaging emotions for Dialog.”
He added: “My expertise was all optimistic – a gathering of considerate folks throughout the political spectrum (my spouse was seated at dinner with a well known Republican politician) and in my reminiscence the gathering mentioned nearly each form of topic however politics. Non-attribution was utilized merely to encourage candor.”
He concluded: “I can see a temptation to view these sorts of occasions as one thing they’re not, in my expertise we’d like extra venues the place folks be happy to speak overtly, with out the strain of public scrutiny – and infrequently misinterpretation – of each phrase if we’re going to rebuild bridges throughout the divide in my nation and our world.”
Requested if he was conscious of Thiel’s reference to the group, McChrystal wrote: “He attended one which I used to be at however I used to be [not] conscious if he was an organizer – appeared to simply be attending like everybody else.”
Wedel, the professor and professional on energy elites, stated of McChrystal’s remark: “Whereas I’m certain it is good to speak off the file, it is good to speak freely, at the similar time, this shaping of opinion has an excessive amount of affect on the remainder of us who aren’t collaborating in it.”
She added: “That’s the conundrum we’re in. And it’s solely by means of leaks, and thru dogged journalism, that you just study a few of these issues after the reality – and then you definately’ve nonetheless had no voice in any of it.”
Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society co-chairman who has formed the federal judiciary, is listed, as are the former treasury secretaries Robert Rubin, and Larry Summers, who recently resigned from Harvard over his affiliation with Jeffrey Epstein; the former state division coverage chief Anne-Marie Slaughter, the former FDA commissioner Peggy Hamburg, and the anti-tax organiser Grover Norquist.
An individual acquainted with Summers’s involvement with Dialog stated that he had attended one assembly final April.
Abroad authorities officers
Dialog’s roster reaches properly past Washington. Serving overseas officers embody Kaja Kallas, the European Fee vice-president and former Estonian prime minister, and Tarō Kōno, Japan’s digital minister and a former defence minister.
In an e-mail, Kallas spokesperson Matthias Eichenlaub wrote: “The Excessive Consultant is not a member of this group. When you’re referring to the press protection that there’s apparently a gathering in Eire in August, we’ve no intention of going there, if that assembly even exists.”
The listing names Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi royal who previously ran the kingdom’s intelligence service and served as its ambassador to Washington and London; Reema bint Bandar Al Saud, the present Saudi ambassador to the United States; Sheikh Nawaf Saud Nasir Al-Sabah, chief govt of the state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Company; and Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, a former prime minister of Pakistan.
There is a notable British presence on the listing. Matt Clifford – who till lately was the UK prime minister’s adviser on AI and now chairs the authorities’s Superior Analysis and Invention Company (Aria) – is a member, as is the British Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat. A separate retreat registration listing is reported to title Randy Kroszner, a former US Federal Reserve governor who now sits on the Financial institution of England’s monetary coverage committee.
In an e-mail responding to a request for remark, Matt Clifford wrote: “I’m very stunned this is fascinating to anybody! For higher or worse, I obtain invites to a lot of conferences, occasions and gatherings annually; this was one among them.”
Clifford added: “I’m not attending the convention. The listing being circulated is (so far as I perceive it) an invitation listing reasonably than an attendee listing.”
Clifford additionally linked the Guardian to Worldwide Enterprise Instances reporting on his Dialog itemizing.
Tech and enterprise
Past the founders – Thiel and Auren Hoffman, who chairs the group – the listing is heavy with enterprise figures closest to the present administration. They embody trillionaire and former “Doge” supremo Elon Musk; Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and overseas coverage envoy, now working the Gulf-backed Affinity Companions; Joe Lonsdale, the Palantir co-founder and distinguished Maga-aligned enterprise capitalist; the former Google chief Eric Schmidt; and the investor and All-In host Chamath Palihapitiya.
It additionally names a row of sitting company chiefs: Greg Brockman, the president of OpenAI (and Jason Kwon, its chief technique officer); Neal Mohan, the chief govt of YouTube; Vas Narasimhan, the chief govt of Novartis; Thasunda Brown Duckett of the pension big TIAA.
Different names come from the world of media and leisure, together with Ezra Klein and Bret Stephens, the New York Instances columnists; the podcaster and writer Sam Harris; and the actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who is married to former OpenAI board member Tasha McCauley and has lately campaigned to repeal the statute that protects online publishers from legal responsibility for content material posted by customers. Additionally on the listing is the longevity entrepreneur Peter Attia, who this yr had a short-lived tenure at Bari Weiss’s revamped CBS Information before resigning over his correspondence with Jeffrey Epstein.
Levitt confirmed to media outlets that he had attended two Dialog occasions.
Epstein invitation
Based round 2005–06, Dialog maintains a paid, tiered membership with a nominations pipeline, an govt director – Raffi Grinberg – and, for a interval, a managing director in Simone Collins, half of the pronatalist couple at the centre of a Silicon Valley motion previously reported on in the Guardian.
Archived variations of an earlier Dialog website present member directories stretching again to 2006 and regional “Round the Desk” dinners in a number of cities. The group is now constructing a everlasting campus in the Washington suburbs, and this yr’s retreat is reported to be set for 12–16 August at a resort exterior Dublin.
The 2014 invitation reveals Hoffman asking Jeffrey Epstein to that yr’s retreat – alongside Tony Blair, Hillary Clinton and Henry Kravis – including Dialog to the lengthy listing of elite establishments that courted the financier after his conviction, a milieu the Guardian has previously reported on. It is not recognized whether or not Epstein attended.
Wedel, the professor, stated: “What we’re seeing is how all of those [elites] come collectively, assist one another out and completely play above the guidelines. They’re not beholden to the guidelines the remainder of us are subjected to.
“The members are secret, the agendas and the conversations are secret – and other people can get away with shaping opinion that is of their curiosity however could also be completely opposite to the pursuits of you and me.”
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