Let others tremble at the thought that Donald J. Trump may go too far. Peter Thiel worries that Mr. Trump may not go far enough.

"Everyone says Trump is going to change everything way too much," says the famed venture capitalist, contrarian and member of the Trump transition team. "Well, maybe Trump is going to change everything way too little. That seems like the much more plausible risk to me."

Mr. Thiel is comfortable being a walking oxymoron: He is driven to save the world from the apocalypse. Yet he helped boost the man regarded by many as a danger to the planet.

"The election had an apocalyptic feel to it," says Mr. Thiel, wearing a gray Zegna suit and sipping white wine in a red leather booth at the Monkey Bar in Manhattan. "There was a way in which Trump was funny, so you could be apocalyptic and funny at the same time. It's a strange combination, but it's somehow very powerful psychologically."

At the recent meeting of tech executives at Trump Tower — orchestrated by Mr. Thiel — the president-elect caressed Mr. Thiel's hand so affectionately that body language experts went into a frenzy. I note that he looked uneasy being petted in front of his peers.

"I was thinking, 'I hope this doesn't look too weird on TV,'" he says.

I ask if he had to twist arms to lure some of the anti-Trump tech titans, like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.

"I think, early on, everybody was worried that they would be the only person to show up," Mr. Thiel says. "At the end, everybody was worried they would be the only person not to show up. I think the bigger tech companies all wanted to get a little bit off the ledge that they had gotten on.

"Normally, if you're a C.E.O. of a big company, you tend to be somewhat apolitical or politically pretty bland. But this year, it was this competition for who could be more anti-Trump. 'If Trump wins, I will eat my sock.' 'I will eat my shoe.' 'I will eat my shoe, and then I will walk barefoot to Mexico to emigrate and leave the country.'