Who is Blake Masters? The republican candidate running for senate

On Aug 4, 2022

U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters paces in a room full of his family and campaign members as they watch the primary election votes roll in at Hilton Garden Inn in Chandler on Aug. 2, 2022.

Blake Masters has rocketed from relative political obscurity to the Republican nominee for Arizona’s U.S. Senate race in the span of about a year.

He did so with prominent help from his mentor, billionaire Peter Thiel, and former President Donald Trump. Now he’s hoping to oust Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., in the Nov. 8 general election.

Here’s a primer on the often-controversial 35-year-old who could tip the balance of power in the U.S. Senate.

How is Blake Masters tied to Donald Trump and Peter Thiel?

Masters is fairly well-known in the tech world because of his years-long ties to Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and a Trump ally.

Masters was born in Colorado and grew up in Tucson. He graduated with degrees in political science and law from Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif.

Thiel was an instructor for one of Masters’ classes and his detailed notes on what Thiel said became an online sensation within the tech community and they became the foundation of “Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future,” a book Masters co-authored with Thiel.

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Masters quickly became chief operating officer of Thiel Capital and president of Thiel’s personal foundation. He resigned from those posts in February.

Masters returned to Tucson in 2018, where he lives with his wife and three young sons.

Trump endorsed Masters in the state’s five-way GOP Senate primary.

“Blake Masters is one of the most successful businessmen and investors in the Country, having led a multibillion-dollar firm that invests in new technology and many other emerging companies,” Trump said in his June 2 announcement of support. “In addition, he runs a nonprofit foundation that promotes science and innovation. In other words, he is a great modern-day thinker!”

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How did Masters get into politics?

Masters drew interest from conservatives in 2019 when he said what many thought but would not say publicly: that then-Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., could not beat Kelly.

McSally lost her 2018 Senate race to Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, but wound up in the chamber anyway after Gov. Doug Ducey appointed her to the state’s other Senate seat after the death of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and the subsequent resignation of Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.

Masters opted against challenging McSally in 2020 after conducting polling, meeting with potential donors and consulting key Republicans, including Ducey and Kyl.

Long before, Masters shared libertarian policy views in online posts and essays while he was at Stanford.

From the outset of Masters’ Senate run, Thiel committed millions to a political action committee to help boost Masters’ chances. He has spent at least $15 million to help Masters.

Where does Blake Masters stand on key issues?

He won Trump’s endorsement in large part by helping push the false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump and by making border security a top policy concern.

Masters has said the 2020 election was not “free and fair” and that cost Trump the presidency.

The claims of an unfair election have been widely debunked by election experts, a conclusion Masters dismisses. “The media has basically memory-holed this,” he has said.

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He has said illegal immigration is “harming real people and on a long enough time horizon, it’s ruining our country.”

Masters wants to restrain Big Tech, who he accuses of “election interference” and censorship, saying the manipulation of search-engine algorithms that decide what items appear on internet searches can be used to suppress information damaging to Democrats or favorable to Republicans.

He favors lifting legal protections to the tech industry to make companies more liable for what they publish.

At a candidate forum in June, Masters said, “Maybe we should privatize Social Security. Private retirement accounts, get the government out of it.”

At a later forum, he told an attendee, “I don’t think we should, like, mess with Social Security. Keep it.” Masters then said he favored loosening restrictions on investment accounts for young people.

What are Masters’ controversies?

Masters is often blunt and provocative. His supporters may find his candor refreshing; his critics see a man comfortable making others cringe.

Democrats “don’t actually care about crime, right?” Masters said in an April podcast. “Like, we do have a gun violence problem in this country and it’s gang violence, right? It’s gangs. It’s people in Chicago, St. Louis shooting each other.

“Very often, you know, Black people, frankly. And the Democrats don’t want to do anything about that.”

Earlier this year, podcaster Alex Kaschuta asked Masters to recommend an underrated “subversive thinker.”

“I’ll probably get in trouble for saying this. … How about Theodore Kaczynski,” Masters said, referring to the “Unabomber.”

Masters clarified that he did not endorse the domestic terrorist’s bombings targeting scientists and acknowledged his answer may sit well with everyone in politics.

“Probably not great talking about the ‘Unabomber’ while campaigning,” Masters said. “He’s a terrorist, you shouldn’t hurt people, obviously.”

Masters saw value in Kaczynski’s ideas as outlined in his 1995 manifesto, where he wrote that society has been harmed by industrialization and the effects of advanced technology.

“There’s a lot that I disagree with, right? This is not an endorsement but there’s a lot of insight there, there’s a lot that is correct.”

As a college student, according to Jewish Insider, Masters wrote an article for a libertarian publication about how U.S. leaders sold World War I to the American public. Masters said wars “are frequently manufactured and deceptively sold to the public,” sometimes to benefit special interests.

He ended the essay with what he described as a “poignant quotation” he said came from Hermann Göring, the convicted Nazi war criminal who held a high post in the Nazi Party.

Göring told an American psychologist who spoke with him before his conviction and ultimate suicide that “voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”