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Shortly before midnight, waiters serve gin and tonics on the rooftop terrace of the David Kempinski in Tel Aviv. Far below, the lights of this city of half a million are glittering. A gentle breeze drifts in from the Mediterranean.
DER SPIEGEL 51/2025
The article you are reading originally appeared in German in issue 51/2025 (December 12th, 2025) of DER SPIEGEL.
SPIEGEL International
Sebastian Kurz is up here having a drink with business associates. Just four days ago he had meetings in Abu Dhabi, then Prague, before traveling via Vienna to Israel. In a few hours he will be catching a connecting flight to Berlin.
Since the former Austrian chancellor went into business in 2022, he has spent very little time back in his home country. He is now 39, a father of two and – at least on paper – a multimillionaire.A man in a T-shirt is standing on the terrace not far from Kurz, tracing triangles on his smartphone screen to explain how artificial intelligence, cyberspace and quantum computing will become the tools of future “supernations.” He sees the U.S., China and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) leading the race.
Who’s Whitewashing Whom?
The Israeli Shalev Hulio is, alongside Kurz, one of the founders of the cybersecurity firm Dream. The company claims to protect governments from digital attacks, in addition to electricity and water utilities, banks and telecommunications operators.Hulio co-founded Dream in January 2023. Today, not even three years later, the company is valued at a minimum of 1 billion euros. Kurz himself holds shares worth approximately 150 million euros.
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Dream founder Shalev Hulio and Sebastian Kurz.
Foto: action press
Pegasus, the spyware Hulio co-developed and sold, once earned the Israeli a reputation as the bad boy of the industry. Countries around the world used Pegasus to conduct surveillance on dissidents and journalists, leading the U.S. to impose sanctions on Hulio’s former company, NSO.It raises the question as to whether Hulio, the descendant of Holocaust survivors, was primarily interested in burnishing his own reputation when he brought the former Austrian chancellor on board.”I would say it’s the other way around: it wasn’t he who whitewashed me, but I who whitewashed him,” Hulio says – presumably an allusion to the fact that Kurz was forced to resign twice as chancellor and is still facing trial on suspicion of corruption.
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“Watch what you say,” Kurz replies with a grin. Both seem blessed with the ability to shrug off setbacks with ease: a team of two comeback kids.He doesn’t believe his Austrian partner has permanently sworn off politics, Hulio says once Kurz is out of earshot: “In Israel we have a proverb from Arabic – ’the flute player’s fingers still tremble as he dies.’”True passions, in other words, endure for life.
A Man on Many Stages
But is it really a passion for political life that drives Kurz, who was once celebrated far beyond Vienna as the child prodigy of global politics? The man who was the great hope of European conservatives, the ally of hardline right-wingers like Donald Trump, Viktor Orbán and Benjamin Netanyahu? Or is the Austrian, as critics contend, a gifted marketer – first and foremost of himself?
Kurz works many stages. He makes appearances at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Munich Security Conference and the World Governments Summit in Dubai. He organizes a secret gathering of ministers and magnates in the Tyrolean town of Seefeld, and he has appeared on Germany’s premier political talk show in addition to dropping by the Axel Springer Verlag publishing house in Berlin. Beyond software, he now sells diesel vehicle additives and real estate. In the latter venture, he is working alongside the former office manager of bankrupt property tycoon René Benko.On the sidelines of the Salzburg Festival this summer, Kurz once again invited prominent guests to Café Bazar for “Schinkenfleckerl and gin tonic” – even though he announced his complete withdrawal from politics four years ago. To this day, he is under investigation by anti-corruption authorities in Vienna.
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European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen greeting Kurz in Salzburg.
Foto: Franz Neumayr / picture alliance
What is this hyperactive conservative’s ultimate goal?Joining the ex-chancellor on his travels and speaking with his confidants does little to shake clear up the confusion. Does someone currently wheeling and dealing at the highest levels really want to return to politics? Or is he leveraging high-ranking contacts and the spotlight primarily to broker new, even more lucrative ventures?”The people I’m dealing with now – I didn’t know any of them before. It’s a different world, geographically and thematically,” Kurz says during a conversation at the Clarion Hotel in Prague. “It’s not that I didn’t enjoy politics, but after 10 years it feels good to do something different.”
That sounds like neither a definitive yes nor a decisive no to a political comeback. It sounds like Kurz 2025: a resolute maybe.Speaking from the stage at a congress of entrepreneurs, bankers and politicians in Prague, Kurz adopts the tone of a seasoned globetrotter as he describes how dramatically Europe is losing ground in international competition. But he also looks back at the refugee crisis, at Angela Merkel and his own divergent stance on migration.”Ten years later, I think it’s fair to say I was right,” he claims. Uncontrolled immigration, he argues, is “a heavy burden” on the social system, especially over the long term – owing to differing birth rates.
Brave New Start-up World
In private, Kurz is blunter when it comes to political opponents on the left – the “friends of open-border policies.” He also brings up the supposedly naive “LGBTQ supporters for Palestine,” saying he wouldn’t wish upon them an encounter with the “gentlemen from Hamas.”With rhetorical finesse, Kurz blends elements from his old and new repertoires – the positions of the former politician flow into the strategy of a businessman whose primary focus is now the Middle East. He spends “at least one week per month in Middle East,” he says.Publicly, the ex-chancellor extols the United Arab Emirates as “one of the most dynamic, safest and most attractive places in the world” – a country that, with 3,500 hours of sunshine a year, an enlightened sheikh at the helm and efficient bureaucracy behind the scenes, draws go-getters from around the globe.
Not a word about what critics see in the Emirates: corruption, tolerance of money laundering, ruthless persecution of dissidents. The European Parliament has denounced “arbitrary arrest, death threats and physical attacks” in the case of human rights activist Ahmed Mansoor, held in solitary confinement for years. Mansoor’s arrest was preceded by digital attacks using NSO’s Pegasus spyware, in addition to other harassment.
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Human rights activist Ahmed Mansoor.
Foto: Jon Gambrell / AP
Kurz’s partner Hulio severed all ties with NSO in 2022. Late at night on the hotel terrace in Tel Aviv, he concedes that individual government clients may have done some ugly things with Pegasus. But Hulio vigorously rejects any accusation of complicity – for instance, in the murder of surveilled Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in 2018.
Several former NSO employees have since joined Hulio’s successor company, Dream. Just four years ago, Apple – itself a victim of Pegasus – branded the NSO team “amoral mercenaries of the 21st century.” Now, some of them are sitting here, high up in a faceless Tel Aviv office tower, alongside the rest of the Dream crew, including “some of the world’s best hackers,” as Kurz calls them.The scene is a cliché of the brave new start-up world: bright corridors; Coke Zero and fresh fruit in the kitchen; a bowl of ginger roots and ready meals in cardboard boxes. Standing in the middle is self-professed schnitzel devotee Sebastian Kurz, explaining that his company now employs 220 people. The plan is to double that number next year. Beyond existing clients in Europe, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, they aim to add customers from the U.S. and South America.
“If you will it, it is no dream”: The motto of Theodor Herzl, founder of political Zionism, adorns the entrance to one of the conference rooms.Inside, Hulio raves about Kurz: “Sebastian is a rock star. He was chancellor twice, he brings gravitas – the necessary weight. He has sat at the table with statesmen around the world.” Those looking to sell products to governments needs to project trustworthiness and geopolitical expertise – and Kurz, he says, delivers both.
An Austrian in “Silicon Wadi”
Tel Aviv, where Kurz spends several days at a time for business while staying at the upscale The George, is the heart of Israel’s high-tech hub, known as “Silicon Wadi,” using the Hebrew word for “valley.”
What does the former statesman think about Israel? About a country accused by United Nations bodies of committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip? A country whose prime minister faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for war crimes, and whose parliament, the Knesset, is currently debating the death penalty for terrorists?Austria’s ex-chancellor shares little of how Israel’s permanent state of emergency since the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023, might affect him. Critical words about Benjamin Netanyahu or the conduct of the war are likewise not forthcoming.
He does offer this: “Half of my employees have demonstrated against Netanyahu, and maybe a quarter voted for him.” But the business partners and associates in his immediate orbit convey a different impression.There is Dream investor Michael Eisenberg, one of Netanyahu’s confidants. The Manhattan-born venture capitalist also heads the organization Hashomer Hachadash (The New Guardian), which supports Israeli settlers in the illegally occupied West Bank, among other causes.
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Buildings in the Gaza Strip destroyed by the Israeli army.
Foto: Saeed M. M. T. Jaras / Anadolu Agency / IMAGO
Hulio, who served as a reservist in the Gaza Strip and, according to press reports, in the West Bank as well, is also said to have sat on the board of the Zionist movement for a time. Shlomo Yanai, who has joined the Dream board, is a retired major general and former planning chief of the Israeli Defense Forces.
The Gaza Strip and the West Bank serve as training grounds and digital laboratories – Israeli weapons and surveillance technology tested there can later be marketed profitably as “battle-tested.” In September, Microsoft dropped the elite Unit 8200 of the Israeli military from its client roster over the digital mass surveillance of Palestinians.Asked about the traditionally tight links between Israel’s military and the cybersecurity industry – reflected in the backgrounds of several Dream employees – Kurz plays it down: “They’re not running around our office with Kalashnikovs. Our people weren’t in killer commando units.”
The Goal: “Always Win”
Yet the interactive data platform Surveillancewatch flags the Kurz company’s product portfolio with the note: “deployed against targets in Palestine.”In the corridors of his start-up that morning, Austria’s ex-chancellor also runs into Avner Netanyahu. Does Kurz know that the Israeli premier’s youngest son was himself reportedly spied on with Pegasus?Netanyahu junior declines to discuss it. He now works for Dream’s major shareholder, Dovi Frances.Frances, a U.S.-Israeli with close ties to both Netanyahu senior and Donald Trump, explains on the company terrace that Dream is on track to become the “gold standard” in cybersecurity. The company’s mission, he says, can be summed up in one word: “winning.” Sebastian Kurz, Frances adds, embodies the requisite ambition: He, too, “always wants to win.”It is fitting, then, that on the day Kurz lands in Berlin from Tel Aviv, the Higher Regional Court of Vienna releases the text of its May ruling. In that ruling, the first-instance conviction of the ex-chancellor for alleged false testimony before a parliamentary inquiry had been overturned. The higher court was now presenting its reasoning: inadequate presentation of evidence.Kurz views this as a first milestone on the road to full rehabilitation. The second trial still looming over him centers on accusations that he and others in the conservative Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) used taxpayer money to buy favorable media coverage.The ex-chancellor works himself into a familiar fury: “This is a politically concocted story. There’s nothing there, and there never was. They promised the star witness immunity if he pinned the blame on me.”Kurz insists “that politics is now being waged through the judiciary,” then quickly pivots to Israel’s premier. Netanyahu has faced criminal proceedings for years on suspicion of bribery, breach of trust and fraud – proceedings that have been repeatedly delayed.
Leading Figure of a “Post-liberal Project”?
The young Viennese entrepreneur sees it this way: “In Israel, the question right now is whether the country will survive at all – and meanwhile there’s actually a case against Netanyahu over some boxes of cigars he received as gifts? It’s contrived. It’s absurd.” Corruption must be fought, the ex-chancellor says, but not like this. It sounds as though different rules might apply to power-conscious leaders.Kurz appears to be lending his face and voice with increasing frequency to a political current gaining ground in many places – one for which the label “far right” doesn’t quite capture the scope. At stake is nothing less than an attempt to expose so-called “liberal” Western values as a misguided path.At the start of his business career, Austria’s ex-chancellor advised Peter Thiel, the U.S. billionaire worth an estimated $14.5 billion. The former Trump backer from Silicon Valley has lately been delivering lectures to handpicked entrepreneurs and investors on the coming apocalypse, the Antichrist and the perils of regulating technological innovation.
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Sebastian Kurz, then as foreign minister, meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem in 2016.
Foto: Dragan Tatic / Außenministerium / picture alliance
Thiel co-founded the data analytics firm Palantir, which supplies intelligence agencies, armed forces and government ministries. “Dream and Palantir together can change the world,” investor Eisenberg exults at the Tel Aviv meeting – without elaborating on how. A 2023 European Parliament inquiry report noted: “The collaboration between Kurz and Hulio represents an indirect but alarming connection of the spyware industry with Peter Thiel and his company Palantir.”At the annual festival of Hungary’s Mathias Corvinus Collegium – an Orbán-aligned think tank lavished with billions in state funding – Thiel was the star guest this past summer and Kurz is a regular attendee. Brexit strategist Dominic Cummings and Alice Weidel of the AfD were also among those present.Austria’s ex-chancellor calls Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán, the architect of “illiberal democracy,” a “friend” – as he does Serbian autocrat Aleksandar Vučić. Whether Hungary and Serbia number among Dream’s European clients remains undisclosed: a trade secret.Viennese political scientist Ralph Schöllhammer speculates that Sebastian Kurz could soon emerge as the leading figure of a “post-liberal project.” Kurz himself says he “can’t do anything with labels like that.” But he presumably wouldn’t object to being called a “leading figure.”After all, hasn’t he managed to orchestrate the secret summit “Moving MountAIns” in Seefeld, alongside his “friend,” former German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg? Arabs met behind closed doors with Israelis; Turkey’s finance minister attended, as did former Google CEO and billionaire Eric Schmidt, who flew in by private jet. Hulio and Frances took part as part of the Dream team.A Bilderberg meeting of a different stripe – a clandestine summit of the rich and powerful exploring what artificial intelligence can accomplish in an era of wars and crises?”There was nothing conspiratorial about it,” Kurz says. He knows all the invitees personally; persuading them to attend wasn’t difficult. “Smart people are simply interested in what other smart people think. We just didn’t publicize it beforehand because people speak more freely when everything doesn’t immediately end up in the press.”
An Interest in Reentering the Fray?
Then Kurz adds a line one might not have expected from him – from the man who, as chancellor, was notorious for “message control,” for tightly coordinated, precisely placed news morsels. Lately, he says, the straitjacket of Western discourse has grown too confining: “A kind of Biedermeier culture is taking hold.”Also present in Seefeld were members of the hard core of the Kurz clique from his time in government: former ministers Gernot Blümel and Elisabeth Köstinger, along with ex-cabinet chief Bernhard Bonelli. Like their former boss, all have moved into the private sector. Like him, they now keep offices in the same building on Vienna’s Ringstrasse.Kurz claims he no longer has “as much contact with old party friends.” But hardly anyone has believed that since the turbulent days of January, when Karl Nehammer stepped down as ÖVP leader and vacated the Chancellery. The question of who would succeed him and break the deadlocked coalition talks was suddenly urgent.Kurz’s name surfaced quickly. On a Friday evening at 8 p.m., word spread through WhatsApp groups: “Sebastian’s going to do it.” Today, Kurz says of that moment: “It was exciting, briefly.” The backing from some regional party branches gave him “a certain satisfaction.” “But my wife, my parents, my friends – they were all against it.” He acknowledges there was also resistance within elements of his own party.By 11 p.m. that same January evening, Kurz had informed confidants he was bowing out. Had he actually considered, even temporarily, becoming vice chancellor under Herbert Kickl, the leader of the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ)? “We never got that far,” Kurz insists. He would probably have pushed for snap elections first.With Kurz as Kickl’s opponent, the FPÖ would likely face a serious problem, a point conceded anonymously at ÖVP headquarters: “In a head-to-head, Kurz would always win.” But no one among the Christian conservatives will say so on the record. For now, Christian Stocker remains federal chancellor and party chairman.
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Incumbant Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker.
Foto: Lisa Leutner / REUTERS
Fearless Gambler
“I can easily imagine Kurz keeping his options open when it comes to a return to politics. The comeback bid in January was very real,” says political consultant Heidi Glück, formerly spokesperson for Federal Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel. But she adds a caveat: “Kurz has found his niche in the tech world. He has a full Rolodex and serves as a door-opener. In the eyes of other players, he’s someone whose calls always get answered.”Sebastian Kurz was Austria’s youngest foreign minister, the country’s youngest chancellor, and now he is thriving as a young entrepreneur. He is, as becomes clear after following his career for years, a largely fearless gambler.Should the second investigation by Austrian anti-corruption authorities also fail to produce a binding conviction, the ex-chancellor may yet seek a new political launchpad – whether within the confines of the ÖVP or, like Emmanuel Macron before him, with a party of his own.On politics, he holds “clear convictions – for instance, that socialism can wreck countries and societies,” Kurz says. As a businessman, by contrast, he is more flexible. In both arenas, the same gift serves him well: “I’m good with people. I pick things up and make something of them.”With reporting by Oliver Das Gupta
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