“Peter Thiel wants my health card”. Ranucci uncovers a global conspiracy at a car dealership

But why does Peter Thiel want Sigfrido Ranucci’s health card? This is the question the former presenter of Report has been asking himself incessantly for months whilst on the promotional tour for his book. As Ranucci himself explains, this incident involving the health card prompted him to ‘write this book as a matter of urgency’, a move he says signals the crushing of democracy under the weight of right-wing techno-oligarchs. He has been recounting this story across the country for at least three months, from Asiago to Piano di Sorrento. He did so most recently a few days ago, at the AVS party in Rome. Here it is. Basically, says Ranucci, after the ‘love bomb’ his dear friend Valter Lavitola had planted on him, he went to buy a new car. And what happened to him at the car dealership? “They asked me for my health card.” This simple request, which to a normal person seems trivial, offers the investigative journalist a glimpse into global power in the age of “surveillance democracy”. 

“Why are they asking me for my health card? I’m an employee, I’ve got my payslip...” wonders Sigfrido. Whilst the average citizen simply hands over the document to complete the bureaucratic procedures, the watchdog of power senses that something fishy is going on with the powers that be. So he investigates, sifts through the documents, spots the connections, joins the dots and… Peter Thiel emerges: “I discover that this company, which was supposed to sell me the car, had a contract with Palantir”. As Ranucci explains, this is the big data analytics firm founded by the German-American venture capitalist and entrepreneur who is a symbol of the techno-right and close to Donald Trump’s circle.

“Peter Thiel is a genius,” says Ranucci, briefly recounting his life story. “He came up with the idea of creating PayPal by investing alongside Elon Musk, then invested in Facebook, Airbnb and LinkedIn – in other words, in companies involved in managing user data.” But then came the real breakthrough. “After 9/11, under the pretext of fighting terrorism, in 2003 he founded Palantir, a company that bases its wealth and power on data secrecy. He is obsessed with Tolkien, and Palantir is the name of the crystal ball that allows one to control the world.” The description of Tolkien’s universe isn’t exactly accurate, but what does all this have to do with the health card? Just a moment more.

Ranucci explains that Thiel has struck deals with the US government to manage data from the secret services, the police and ICE, before moving on to data from the public administration, banks, insurance companies and the defence sector: “What is the purpose of all this information being circulated on artificial intelligence platforms? To identify the enemies of the United States.” This brings us round to the health card. However, several steps remain. “He was the one who helped identify and have Bin Laden killed in 2011; he contributed to the genocide in Gaza; he contributed to what happened in Iran and Lebanon.” Nevertheless, it remains unclear why, among all his perceived adversaries worldwide, Peter Thiel would be specifically interested in you. “So why does he need my health card details?” Exactly – what use is that to a techno-oligarch? “Well, because possessing information gives power,” explains Ranucci. “If I go to ask for a loan, and I’m someone who occasionally has a bomb planted outside my house, and I have health issues… perhaps it’s not the best idea to lend me too much.”

The report outlines an alleged international intrigue: Peter Thiel is said to have sought Ranucci’s health card in order to block his car lease or long-term rental. On a page of his book Il ritorno della casta, in which he traces the ‘dark thread running through fifty years of Italian history’, placing this ‘subversive plan’ within a ‘disturbing blueprint for a new world order’, Ranucci discusses an agreement between Stellantis and Palantir to optimise car performance by analysing driving data generated by vehicles on the road. And he asks: “Nowadays, if you go to buy a car, they ask for your health card as a guarantee. Why?”

We do not wish to downplay the conspiracy theory – the result of intense brainstorming by the finest minds in investigative journalism – but a health card is no guarantee of anything. It is not a mortgage. Not least because there is no possibility of enforcement: what happens if you don’t pay – does the bank seize three letters of your tax reference number? If the seller asked the journalist for his health card, it is simply because he needed the tax code for the contract. But there is no sharing of data – let alone health data – with Palantir: Peter Thiel will never know whether Ranucci has high cholesterol, diabetes or an enlarged prostate.

Moreover, to find out that Ranucci has friends who plant bombs outside his house, Peter Thiel doesn’t need a health card – all he needs is Google. The very same tool that Ranucci should have used before writing his book on the new world order and ‘surveillance democracy’: with just two clicks he would have discovered – for example, on the ACI website – that to register a car you need an identity document and a health card (tax code). It wasn’t Palantir that wanted Ranucci’s data, but the PRA.