Blake Gates Masters was born on August 5,1986 and is an American venture capitalist and political candidate.
29 Facts About Blake Masters
2.
Frequently referred to as a protege of businessman Peter Thiel, Masters co-wrote Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future with Thiel in 2014, based on notes Masters had taken at Stanford Law School in 2012.
3.
Blake Masters was later chief operating officer of Thiel's investment firm, Thiel Capital, and president of the Thiel Foundation.
4.
Blake Masters benefited from $15 million in funding from Thiel during the primary campaign but lost to incumbent Democrat Mark Kelly.
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Blake Masters was born in Denver, Colorado, in 1986, the son of Marilyn, who ran a tutoring center, and Scott Blake Masters, who worked in the software industry.
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In high school, Blake Masters attended Green Fields Country Day School, which was at the time a private school in Tucson, where he played basketball.
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Blake Masters received a bachelor's degree in political science from Stanford University in 2008.
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Blake Masters then earned a JD from Stanford University Law School in 2012.
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Blake Masters endorsed conspiracy theorist G Edward Griffin's claim that the "Houses of Morgan and Rothschild" were linked to the sinking of the Lusitania.
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Blake Masters' posts became a political issue after they were unearthed during his 2022 Senate campaign.
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Blake Masters spent four months in 2010 as a law clerk for a US Attorney's Office.
12.
Renditions of Blake Masters' notes reappeared online, prompting Blake Masters to get in contact with Thiel about compiling them into a book.
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The website officially launched in 2017, though Blake Masters left the project in 2014.
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In October 2019, Blake Masters suggested he would launch a primary challenge against Republican US Senator Martha McSally, expressing concern McSally was not a good candidate and criticizing her loss in the 2018 election, which Blake Masters said was a "winnable" race.
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In January 2020, Blake Masters said he would not run against McSally.
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In March 2022, Blake Masters resigned from his positions at Thiel's investment firm and foundation to campaign in the 2022 Arizona Senate race.
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Blake Masters officially entered the race in July 2021, and Thiel gave an additional $3.5 million to the pro-Blake Masters super PAC in May 2022.
18.
Blake Masters issued non-fungible tokens to fundraise for his campaign, announcing that the first 99 donors to contribute over $5,800 to his campaign would receive a limited edition NFT that would allow access to a private chat server and live events, as well as a copy of his book signed by himself and Thiel.
19.
Blake Masters had encouraged people to read Industrial Society and Its Future, Unabomber Ted Kaczynski's manifesto, for its analysis of the negative impact of technology on society; he pointed to Kaczynski as an example of a "subversive thinker" who should be more widely known.
20.
Blake Masters later conceded the race to Kelly a week after the election.
21.
Blake Masters said that if elected to the Senate, he would vote to confirm federal judicial nominees only if they "understand that Roe and Griswold and Casey were wrongly decided".
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Blake Masters has embraced the Great Replacement conspiracy theory popular among white nationalists by asserting that Democrats want to deliberately engineer demographic replacement of American white people via immigration.
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Blake Masters has claimed that illegal immigration will "change the demographics of this country" and in a campaign ad said, "We're going to end this invasion".
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Blake Masters denies that he promotes the great replacement theory, but blames Democrats for encouraging illegal immigration to "import" new voters for their party.
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Blake Masters has echoed Donald Trump's false claims that the 2020 presidential election was "stolen".
26.
In June 2021, Blake Masters said that "it's really hard to know" the winner of the 2020 presidential election, and supported an audit of the vote in Maricopa County.
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Blake Masters appeared at a fundraiser with the former president at Mar-a-Lago shortly afterward.
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Blake Masters has suggested privatizing Social Security, but has opposed cuts and in August 2022 he indicated support for increases to the program.
29.
Blake Masters supported Elon Musk's then-proposed acquisition of Twitter and called for legislation to treat major social media companies as "common carriers" and to regulate Google's search algorithm.