Donald Trump said Tuesday that his administration will investigate a claim from the billionaire founder of PayPal that Google has been infiltrated by China.
Tech investor Peter Thiel, 51, made the comments during a speech at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington.
‘Billionaire Tech Investor Peter Thiel believes Google should be investigated for treason. He accuses Google of working with the Chinese Government,’ Trump wrote on Twitter, quoting a segment on ‘Fox & Friends.’
The president pronounced Thiel ‘[a] great and brilliant guy who knows this subject better than anyone!’
‘The Trump Administration will take a look!’ he added.
Thiel, a Facebook board member who supported Trump in 2016 and spoke at the Republican National Convention, had slammed Google for working with the Chinese military while refusing to renew a contract with the Pentagon. He suggested Google’s actions were ‘seemingly treasonous.’
Billionaire PayPal founder Peter Thiel, 51, called on the FBI and CIA to investigate whether Google has been infiltrated by China
Thiel is the biggest supporter of Donald Trump in Silicon Valley and donated to his campaign
Thiel also said American agencies should ask Google three questions to determine whether it had been infilitrated by Chinese intelligence services.
‘Number one: How many foreign intelligence agencies have infiltrated your Manhattan Project for AI (artificial intelligence)?
‘Number two: Does Google’s senior management consider itself to have been thoroughly infiltrated by Chinese intelligence?
‘Number three: Is it because they consider themselves to be so thoroughly infiltrated that they have engaged in the seemingly treasonous decision to work with the Chinese military and not with the US military.’
Thiel is the most high-profile supporter of the Trump administration in Silicon Valley.
He contributed $250,000 to the Trump Victory Committee in October and was involved in the transition following the President’s election victory.
Thiel, who spoke at the 2016 Republican National Convention, hadn’t made a donation to the committee since the 2016 election.
The billionaire also praised Trump’s foreign policy on Sunday, in particular his trade efforts in China, which he termed a ‘signature achievement’ of the administration. Thiel suggested the 25% tariff on Chinese goods should be thought of ‘as a floor and not a ceiling.’
Thiel said that American agencies should ask Google three questions, to determine whether it had been infiltrated by Chinese intelligence services
Google has faced criticism for its work on the controversial ‘Project Dragonfly’, a censored search engine for China.
The company admitted last year it had been looking at options to build a specialist search engine in China, but that it had no plans to launch it.
The firm said it had ‘effectively ended’ the project, with CEO Sundar Pichai assuring US Congress in December that it had ‘no plans’ to release the software.
However, allegations from insiders at Google claim they have discovered hundreds of code changes on the project in the last few months.
This suggests that the project is still being worked on in secret.
Google employees who looked into the latest status of Project Dragonfly claim that budgets for the project still contained 100 personnel names.
Around 500 alterations to the code used on the project were made in December, followed by 400 more at the start of this year, company insiders say.
Google was forced to climb down from its plans for Dragonfly, after revelations about the project drew fierce criticism and pressure from its employees.
Any search engine that operates in China would have to comply with the country’s strict censorship policies.
Google pulled out of China in 2010 due to the firm’s unwillingness to submit to these restrictions.
The firm’s search engine and mail services remain blocked in mainland China along with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Chinese internet users have to resort to a variety of technological tricks to try to circumvent the ‘Great Firewall of China’, as the restrictions have been dubbed.
The existence of Project Dragonfly was first revealed in August 2018, when members of Google’s privacy team raised concerns about the project.
Google said it was simply an effort to size up options for potentially re-entering the country.
Keith Enright, Google’s chief privacy officer, told a Senate committee hearing in September 2018 that ‘any relaunch in China would be ‘consistent with our values in privacy and data protection’.
In December Sundar Pichai told a US Congressional panel that while the project had more than 100 people working on it at its height, the company had no plans to launch in China.
Mr Pichai said: ‘Right now there are no plans for us to launch a search product in China… to the extent we approach a position like that, I will be fully transparent, including with policy makers here, and engage and consult widely.’
CEO Sundar Pichai assuring US Congress in December that it had ‘no plans’ to release its controversial Chinese search engine
More than a thousand Google employees protested the project, writing a blog titled ‘We are Google employees. Google must drop Dragonfly.’
But there was also sharp divisions within Google as 500 employees penned an alternative letter saying the firm should move ahead with controversial Chinese search engine.
The letter claimed that Dragonfly was ‘well aligned with Google’s mission’.
‘China has the largest number of Internet users of all countries in the world, and yet, most of Google’s services are unavailable in China,’ the letter read.
‘This situation heavily contradicts our mission ‘to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful’.’
Later reports claimed that Google had ‘effectively ended’ the entire project.
Meanwhile, Google decided not to renew a contract with the US military in June 2018 over Project Maven.
The project was a collaboration between Google and the US military to use its AI to control drones destined for enemy territory.
It came following protest resignations from some employees.
More than 3,000 Google employees signed a petition in protest against the company’s involvement with the U.S. Department of Defense artificial intelligence (AI) project.
In an open letter addressed to CEO Pichai, Google employees said they were concerned that the US military could weaponize AI and apply the technology towards refining drone strikes and other kinds of lethal attacks.
‘We believe that Google should not be in the business of war,’ the letter said, before explaining that Google’s involvement in Project Maven stands to damage its brand and its trust among the public.