British Museum hosted Palantir founder Peter Thiel in private viewing of Bayeux tapestry

The British Museum privately hosted the Donald Trump-supporting tech billionaire Peter Thiel in the exhibition space of the Bayeux tapestry earlier this month, the Guardian understands.The museum’s director of development, Charlotte Appleyard, hosted the PayPal founder at a VIP viewing of the tapestry, which is yet to open to the public, on 18 August.In response to queries from the Guardian, a source at the museum confirmed that the visit took place. It is understood the museum chair, George Osborne, was aware of the viewing but did not attend with Thiel.It is understood that senior museum leaders were warned about the possible public perception of special treatment for someone with connections to Jeffrey Epstein, and whose public software company, Palantir, plays a controversial role in the British state.There were concerns among some staff that scarce “lux hours” for the tapestry – a combined measure of light intensity and exposure time used to track and limit cumulative light damage to sensitive artefacts – were given up to someone with no known interest in the museum.The exhibition gallery is still under construction, and only limited viewings of the tapestry have been possible across a range of stakeholders. Among those receiving special access are Osborne and his podcasting partner, Ed Balls, who will record the next episode of their Political Currency show from the gallery, the notes on the most recent episode suggest.The British Museum has a careful plan for light-hour allocation, agreed in partnership with colleagues in France. It is understood that no light hours have been taken from the allocation for public visitors. Thiel is not a donor to the museum and no money has been received via him or his businesses.Members of the public keen to see the Bayeux tapestry faced online queues of up to nine hours when tickets went on sale for the first time earlier this summer. There were reports of 40,000 people queueing by mid-morning, with that figure ballooning to almost 80,000 by mid-afternoon.On Friday, the museum announced that the next wave of public tickets for the tapestry will go on sale on 21 October at 10am.Guests at One Aldwych hotel, where rooms cost more than £1,000 a night, are also able to get tickets without joining the online queues. Thiel is the founder of Palantir, a public software company that builds data integration, analytics and artificial intelligence platforms for government agencies and large corporations. Palantir has a swathe of British public contracts, including, most controversially, a £330m deal with the NHS, which it has held since 2023.The company also works for the US, Israeli and UK militaries. Its use of its AI-powered software to support military strikes in Gaza and Iran, US ICE immigration raids and access to NHS data has stoked concern.Last month, a second parliamentary committee urged Labour to scrap Palantir’s NHS contract. The cross-party group of MPs cited “serious mistrust” among the public and the medical profession of its NHS system, contested evidence of its benefits, and cited the availability of other tools that could deliver similar results.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn May, Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, blocked the Metropolitan police from awarding a £50m contract to Palantir after saying Londoners wanted to see public money being paid to companies that “share the values of our city”. Palantir is challenging the decision in the high court.Thiel recently hit the headlines for hosting a series of lectures philosophising about who the antichrist could be and warning that Armageddon was coming. He has also recently become powerful in US conservative politics, with close ties to Donald Trump and JD Vance, and has helped bankroll Republicans’ 2026 midterm campaigns.The Epstein files showed that Thiel remained in contact with the financier for years after his 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor, with multiple references to lunches and meetings between the pair from about 2014 onwards.Epstein’s Southern Trust Company also invested about $40m (£29.5m) in a venture fund co-founded by Thiel, while 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 that he was involved in Epstein’s sexual abuse or trafficking.Thiel and Palantir have been approached for comment.