Today, the Arizona Republic reported that Arizona GOP U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters aired a TV ad that included footage of border security technology linked to his billionaire backer and former Big Tech boss Peter Thiel. The piece notes that “[t]he system appears to come from Anduril Industries, a company Thiel has invested in with hundreds of millions in government contracts. ‘It’s time to militarize the border,’ Masters says as the ad shows Anduril’s Sentry Tower system.”
This isn’t the first time Masters has used his campaign to promote the business interests of the man bankrolling his run for U.S. Senate. On the campaign trail, Masters has plugged Thiel-linked investments in interviews and public addresses and seems incapable of separating himself from the interests of his former employer.
Arizonans should expect him to act no differently if elected.
Arizona Republic: Blake Masters TV ad promotes border technology financially linked to Peter Thiel
By Ronald J. Hansen | July 18, 2022
Key Points:
- “Like every Republican running in Arizona’s U.S. Senate race this year, Blake Masters is talking about getting tough on the nation’s border with Mexico. He made that point last month in his first TV ad. What he showed but didn’t mention in the campaign commercial is part of Masters’ rapid political rise: his ties to billionaire technology investor Peter Thiel.”
- “The ad includes footage of a security system as Masters calls to revamp border security. The system appears to come from Anduril Industries, a company Thiel has invested in with hundreds of millions in government contracts. ‘It’s time to militarize the border,’ Masters says as the ad shows Anduril’s Sentry Tower system.”
- “When Masters launched his campaign last year, he touted Anduril and another Thiel business interest. Taken as a whole, the references and the money only deepen concerns by Masters’ critics that he is beholden to a billionaire benefactor.”
- “Masters casts himself as possessing expert knowledge of the technology industry and has a plan to overhaul what he described Wednesday as ‘an existential threat to this republic.’ But the overlap between Masters and Thiel remains a prominent concern about the political newcomer in part because Masters and Thiel have helped make it so.”
- “When he kicked off his campaign last year, Masters said he knew of Thiel’s business interests in border control, and liked them. ‘I’m familiar with those companies and bullish on them,’ he told the New York Post at the time. ‘I’m open to whatever works.’”
Read the full report here.
Published: Jul 18, 2022 | Last Modified: Aug 29, 2022