A website leak has exposed the participants in the secretive, Peter Thiel-founded Dialog retreats, revealing a sprawling network of US and foreign politicians, tech billionaires, corporate leaders, and media figures who have attended the invitation-only gatherings.
The leak occurred after registration records were inadvertently left in the source code of Dialog’s website, with an archived snapshot captured by the Internet Archive on 15 June. The breach was first identified by a Swiss hacktivist on BlueSky and was independently verified by the Guardian. The exposed directory includes hundreds of names, though it remains unclear whether all those listed are past attendees, prospective invitees, or full members of the organisation.
Inside the secretive Dialog retreats
Dialog was founded around 2005–2006 by Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech investor and conservative éminence grise, and Auren Hoffman, a tech entrepreneur who now chairs the group. The organisation describes itself as a platform for non-ideological, non-partisan conversation, but operates with a high degree of secrecy. Annual retreats are held at luxury venues around the world — recent locations have included Arizona, California, Venice and Utah — and attendees are assured their discussions are off the record. The upcoming retreat is scheduled for 12–16 August at a hotel outside Dublin, Ireland, with reported discussion topics ranging across nuclear power, world war three, sex, and cults.
Dialog maintains a paid, tiered membership with a nominations pipeline. Its executive director is Raffi Grinberg, and for a period the managing director was Simone Collins, part of the pronatalist Silicon Valley couple previously reported on by the Guardian. The group is now building a permanent campus in the Washington D.C. suburbs. A separate website, dating.dialog.org, suggests a matchmaking feature for members seeking romantic connections.
The leaked attendees
The leaked list draws together an extraordinary cross-section of power, spanning both sides of the US political aisle, foreign governments, and the upper echelons of technology and finance. Many names on the directory are likely to have attended events before Thiel’s alignment with the political right and the Trump era.
US politicians and officials include senior Trump administration figures: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf, and Jim O’Neill, the former deputy secretary of health and human services who co-founded Thiel’s fellowship programme. Sitting senators Ted Cruz (Republican of Texas) and Cory Booker (Democrat of New Jersey) are listed, alongside Connecticut Democratic congressman Jim Himes. Two sitting Democratic governors appear: Wes Moore of Maryland and Jared Polis of Colorado.
Re Dialog: Cory is not involved with this group. Back when he was a mayor he regularly attended conferences and speaking engagements, and this might have been among them. He is not a part of this organization and has absolutely no interest in doing anything with them.
— David Bergstein (@DavidABergstein) June 18, 2026
Responses from Democrats indicated a desire to distance themselves. Polis’s spokesperson Eric Maruyama said the governor “is not a member of this organization, whatever it is” and did not recall attending any functions. Booker’s spokesperson David Bergstein said the senator “is not involved with this group” and might have attended a conference as a mayor years ago. Moore took to X to say his involvement was a single speaking engagement “13 years ago” about his book, adding: “That was my first and last appearance at Dialog. Never met Peter Thiel. Don’t plan to in the future!”
Former government figures also appear: Robert Hur, the former special counsel; Lisa Monaco, the former deputy attorney general; Julian Castro, the former housing secretary; Preet Bharara, the former US attorney in Manhattan; Mitch Daniels, the former Indiana governor; and retired General Stan McChrystal. McChrystal told the Guardian he attended two Dialog events about a decade ago, describing them as “a gathering of thoughtful people across the political spectrum” where non-attribution encouraged candour. He was aware Thiel attended one event but did not know he was an organiser.
The directory includes conservative-movement powerhouse Leonard Leo, former treasury secretaries Robert Rubin and Larry Summers (who recently resigned from Harvard over his association with Jeffrey Epstein), former state department policy chief Anne-Marie Slaughter, former FDA commissioner Peggy Hamburg, and anti-tax organiser Grover Norquist. A person familiar with Summers’s involvement said he attended one meeting last April.
Overseas government officials reach well beyond Washington. The leaked list includes Kaja Kallas, the European Commission vice-president and former Estonian prime minister; Tarō Kōno, Japan’s digital minister and former defence minister; Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi royal and former intelligence chief; Reema bint Bandar Al Saud, the current Saudi ambassador to the US; Sheikh Nawaf Saud Nasir Al-Sabah, CEO of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation; and Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, a former prime minister of Pakistan.
British figures include Matt Clifford, the former UK prime minister’s AI adviser who now chairs the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria), and Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat. Clifford responded that he receives “a large number of invitations” and is not attending the conference, describing the list as an invite list rather than an attendee list. Kallas’s spokesperson said she is “not a member of this group” and has no intention of attending the Ireland meeting. A separate registration list names Randy Kroszner, a former US Federal Reserve governor now on the Bank of England’s financial policy committee.
Tech and business leaders make up a significant portion of the directory. The list includes billionaire Elon Musk; OpenAI president Greg Brockman and chief strategy officer Jason Kwon; YouTube CEO Neal Mohan; Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan; TIAA CEO Thasunda Brown Duckett; Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law running Affinity Partners; Palantir co-founder and venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale; former Google CEO Eric Schmidt; and investor and All-In host Chamath Palihapitiya. Others named are Peter Thiel and Auren Hoffman themselves, along with Marc Andreessen, Reid Hoffman, Henry Kravis, and numerous other billionaires and investors.
Media and entertainment figures include New York Times columnists Ezra Klein and Bret Stephens; podcaster and author Sam Harris; actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who confirmed to media outlets he attended two Dialog events; and longevity entrepreneur Peter Attia, who this year had a short-lived tenure at Bari Weiss’s revamped CBS News before resigning over his correspondence with Jeffrey Epstein. Other names include actors Sophia Bush and Josh Brolin, music manager Scooter Braun, and Washington Post reporter Souad Mekhennet. Bush stated she accepted an invitation to speak about a documentary on deepfake porn and expressed surprise at the founder’s identity. Brolin’s representatives said he wanted to know “what the f–k he got himself into.”
13 years ago I was invited to speak – to an audience largely unfamiliar with the experiences of millions of Americans who grew up like me – about my book The Other Wes Moore.
That was my first and last appearance at Dialog. Never met Peter Thiel. Don’t plan to in the future!
— Wes Moore (@iamwesmoore) June 18, 2026
Epstein connection
The leak connects Dialog to another scandal at the intersection of wealth and power. Emails released by the House oversight committee show that co-founder Auren Hoffman invited the deceased financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to the 2014 conference. An invitation was also forwarded to Epstein by Harvard physicist Lisa Randall. It is not known whether Epstein attended any Dialog gatherings.
Expert analysis: the problem for democracy
Janine Wedel, co-director of the Corruption, Networks, and Transnational Crime Research Center at George Mason University and author of Shadow Elite, said such gatherings represent a growing phenomenon where the most powerful elites from finance, tech, and politics come together to shape opinion and set agendas away from public view.
“It is in these sorts of gatherings – where you have financial, tech and political power coming together – that we’re increasingly seeing agendas being set and opinions being shaped,” Wedel said. “It’s where the most powerful elites, a cross-section, an interconnected section of the most powerful positions, come together and shape elite opinion.”
She added: “There do seem to be a growing number of fora involved in precisely this – transnational gatherings of the most powerful financial, tech and political elites, coming together. So I think it’s a problem for democracy, in essence. We have to think about it that way.”
Wedel also addressed the argument made by participants like General McChrystal that off-the-record discussions allow for candour. “While I’m sure it is nice to talk off the record, it is nice to talk freely, at the same time, this shaping of opinion has a great deal of impact on the rest of us who aren’t participating in it,” she said. “That’s the conundrum we’re in. And it’s only through leaks, and through dogged journalism, that you learn some of these things after the fact – and then you’ve still had no voice in any of it.”
She concluded: “What we’re seeing is how all of these [elites] come together, help each other out and absolutely play above the rules. They’re not beholden to the rules the rest of us are subjected to. The participants are secret, the agendas and the conversations are secret – and people can get away with shaping opinion that is in their interest but may be absolutely contrary to the interests of you and me.”
