According to The Sun newspaper, Thiel, 43, has given $1.19 million to the Seasteading Institure, which believes the ocean is the "only option to create new societies on Earth". The first floating nation could be built off San Francisco as soon as next year.

The new countries would be a "kind of floating Petri dish for implementing policies that libertarians, stymied by indifference at the voting booths, have been unable to advance: no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage and few restrictions on weapons".

Thiel, 43, who is worth $1.6 billion, admitted that many saw the idea of creating societies in the ocean as a crackpot scheme. "There are quite a lot of people who think it's not possible. "That's a good thing. We don't need to really worry about those people very much, because since they don't think it's possible they won't take us very seriously. And they will not actually try to stop us until it's too late."