Thiel put the vast majority of this money towards buying Xero shares on the public sharemarket. Hard to call that a bold investment strategy. As if that wasn't low-risk enough, he then managed to buy these shares on 50% margin (that's the NZVIF portion) and double his potential profit AT NO ADDITIONAL RISK.

Agree, Nobody likes to see their government whoring out citizenship's (there's no other word for it!) but if they do they they should be be honest and sell the passport for cold hard cash to use in infrastructure or social projects, NOT for investing in real estate (which fucks up the local market) nor stock market investments where there is more chance of actually gaining money in the deal.