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So to (fairly) paraphrase: "The political and psychological reactions people are having to the fact that confirmed serial sexual predator (and all-around loathsome human being in general) Donald J Trump will be assuming the highest office in the land are far worse -- categorically worse -- then the fact itself. And BTW, as offensive, disgusting, and profoundly disturbing as what he said on that tape was -- on a deeper level I couldn't help thinking, hey, this sounds someone I can really relate to, and hitch my wagon with."

When I ask him if he can explain to Mr. Trump that climate change is not a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese, he offers a Chinese box of an answer: “Does he really think that? If he really thinks that, how would you influence that? If he really thinks that and you could influence him, what would be the best way to do it?”

More liberally translated: "You know, I could never really make heads or tails of all this fact-based, hard-science-y stuff people keep obsessing about. Philosophy and politics were always so much easier. At the end of the day, though, what I guess what it comes down to is -- hey, maybe we're at risk of seriously and irrecoverably damaging the environment (and killing scores and scores of people in the process) if we don't radically change course, or maybe we aren't. But either way, if I can use my relationship to this administration to bring my radical political agenda into the mainstream -- it will all be worth it."

I gasped when I read this

He recalls a story from his and Mr. Musk’s PayPal days, when Mr. Musk joined the engineering team’s poker game and bet everything on every hand, admitting only afterward that it was his first time playing poker. Then there was the time they were driving in Mr. Musk’s McLaren F1 car, “the fastest car in the world.” It hit an embankment, achieved liftoff, made a 360-degree horizontal turn, crashed and was destroyed.

“It was a miracle neither of us were hurt,” Mr. Thiel says. “I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, which is not advisable. Elon’s first comment was, ‘Wow, Peter, that was really intense.’ And then it was: ‘You know, I had read all these stories about people who made money and bought sports cars and crashed them. But I knew it would never happen to me, so I didn’t get any insurance.’ And then we hitchhiked the rest of the way to the meeting.”