Although Ayn Rand opposed libertarianism, which she viewed as anti-capitalist, her philosophy of Objectivism has been, and continues to be, a major influence on the right-libertarian movement, particularly libertarianism in the United States. Many libertarians justify their political views using aspects of Objectivism.

Some right-libertarians, including Murray Rothbard and Walter Block, hold the view that the non-aggression principle is an irreducible concept: it is not the logical result of any given ethical philosophy, but rather is self-evident as any other axiom is. Rand argued that liberty was a precondition of virtuous conduct, but that her non-aggression principle itself derived from a complex set of previous knowledge and values. For this reason, Objectivists refer to the non-aggression principle as such while libertarians who agree with Rothbard's argument call it "the non-aggression axiom".

Rothbard and other anarcho-capitalists hold that government requires non-voluntary taxation to function and that in all known historical cases, the state was established by force rather than social contract. Thus, they consider the establishment and maintenance of the night-watchman state supported by Objectivists to be in violation of the non-aggression principle. On the other hand, Rand believed that government can in principle be funded through voluntary means. Voluntary financing notwithstanding, some libertarians consider that a government would by definition still violate individual rights (commit aggression) by enforcing a monopoly over a given territory.

In her biography Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, Jennifer Burns notes how Rand's position that "Native Americans were savages" and that as a result "European colonists had a right to seize their land because native tribes did not recognize individual rights" was one of the views that "particularly outraged libertarians". Burns also notes how Rand's position that "Palestinians had no rights and that it was moral to support Israel, the sole outpost of civilization in a region ruled by barbarism" was also a controversial position amongst libertarians, who at the time were a large portion of Rand's fan base.

Libertarians and Objectivists have disagreed about matters of foreign policy. Following the Arab–Israeli War of 1973, Rand denounced Arabs as "primitive" and "one of the least developed cultures" who "are practically nomads". She said Arab resentment for Israel was a result of the Jewish state being "the sole beachhead of modern science and civilization on their continent" and referred to the Israelis as "civilized men fighting savages". Later Objectivists, such as Leonard Peikoff, David Kelley, and Yaron Brook, have continued to hold pro-Israel positions since Rand's death.

Most scholars of the right-libertarian Cato Institute have opposed military intervention against Iran, while the Objectivist Ayn Rand Institute has supported forceful intervention in Iran.

United States Libertarian Party's first candidate for President John Hospers credited Rand as a major force in shaping his own political beliefs. David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute, an American libertarian think tank, described Rand's work as "squarely within the libertarian tradition" and that some libertarians are put off by "the starkness of her presentation and by her cult following". Milton Friedman described Rand as "an utterly intolerant and dogmatic person who did a great deal of good". One Rand biographer quoted Murray Rothbard as saying that he was "in agreement basically with all [Rand's] philosophy" and that it was Rand who had "convinced him of the theory of natural rights". Rothbard would later become a particularly harsh critic of Rand, writing in The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult:

The major lesson of the history of the [Objectivist] movement to libertarians is that It Can Happen Here, that libertarians, despite explicit devotion to reason and individuality, are not exempt from the mystical and totalitarian cultism that pervades other ideological as well as religious movements. Hopefully, libertarians, once bitten by the virus, may now prove immune.