Billionaire Peter Thiel Pursues Immortality By Planning Cryopreservation After Death

Billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel told independent journalist Bari Weiss on her podcast, "Honestly with Bari Weiss," that when death comes knocking on his door, he has opted to be cryogenically frozen, even though he isn't entirely sure if the technology will revive him at a future date. 

Weiss asked Thiel: 

"Is it true that you're signed up to be cryonically preserved when you die so that you might be brought back to life in the future?"

The billionaire, who ranks 271 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with a net worth of $8.1 billion, responded: 

"Yes... But I think of it more as an ideological statement."

"I don't necessarily expect it to work, but I think it's the sort of thing we're supposed to try to do," Thiel continued.

Weiss then asked Thiel if he made plans for his loved ones to be frozen too. That's when he stated he was "not convinced" the technology works as intended (yet). 

"It's more, I think we need to be trying things. It's not there yet," he said 

Thiel's interest in anti-aging technologies is part of a race among other billionaires fascinated with living forever. He told The Telegraph in a 2014 interview that he is signed up to be frozen by biotech firm Alcor. 

"In telling you that I've signed up for it [cryogenics], there's always this reaction that it's really crazy, it's disturbing. But my take on it is it's only disturbing because it challenges our complacency."

In 2006, Theil pledged $3.5 million in funding for Alcor to complete scientific research into the alleviation and eventual reversal of the debilities caused by aging. 

Thiel has expressed his concern that the human race is distracted by conflicts and cultural matters while it should focus on other issues like curing cancer

"I keep thinking that I'm not doing enough on biotech and radical life extension or even just trying to invest in curing a lot of these very big chronic diseases that we have," he told Weiss.

Thiel joins a list of billionaires who also want to be cryogenically preserved. Some have already had their bodies frozen at temperatures of -321°F in the hope of being revived centuries later when medical science has advanced enough to treat the cause of their death.