![]() He's funded dozens of startups, including Uber rival Lyft. He made his first big money as a cofounder of PayPal and then made even more money as an early investor in Facebook. Within Silicon Valley, Thiel is a legend. Thiel revealed his backing of Bollea's lawsuit in an interview with the New York Times, saying he saw Gawker as pioneering a unique and damaging way of getting attention by bullying people, even when there's no connection to the public interest. Thiel himself was the target of a Gawker-owned website which publicly outed him with the headline Peter Thiel is Totally Gay, People. Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel helped Bollea pursue the case. Hulk Hogan - real name, Terry Gene Bollea - sued the publication for invasion of privacy after it published a sex tape of him and a friend's wife. LAURA SYDELL, BYLINE: Gawker's tagline is Today's Gossip is Tomorrow's News, and the site often lives up to it. The outspoken Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel now acknowledges he financed Hogan's lawsuit. When the wrestler Hulk Hogan decided to take on the gossip site Gawker, turns out he had some financial help, and he eventually won. Surreptitious efforts by a director to undermine a news organization may fuel continued questions as to whether Facebook can objectively curate information from an array of different viewpoints and outlets.It takes a lot of money to fight a legal battle. Facebook spokeswoman Caryn Marooney declined to comment.įacebook was recently embroiled in controversy over allegations it suppresses conservative viewpoints in a service that shows what news stories are popular among users. In one, he’s representing Shiva Ayyadurai, whose claims to have invented email were challenged by Gawker and other media. Harder has brought other cases against Gawker. Neither Thiel nor Charles Harder, the attorney representing Hogan, responded to requests from Bloomberg News for comment. Gawker can still proceed to a Florida appeals court. ![]() “We trust the appeals court will correct the outsized Florida jury verdict and reaffirm the law that protects a free and critical press, which is more embattled and important than ever," Gawker said in a statement.Ī Florida judge denied Gawker’s motion for a new trial and said the $140 million jury verdict won’t be reduced, the Associated Press reported. In March, a Florida jury awarded Hogan $25 million in punitive damages for invasion of privacy, coming on top of $115 million for economic harm and emotional distress. He recently showed up as a California delegate for Trump. For this election cycle, Thiel provided $2 million to a super political action committee backing Carly Fiorina, who was a chief executive officer of Hewlett Packard Co. In 2012, he donated $2.6 million to Ron Paul and supported Ted Cruz’s senate run. Thiel, 48, has supported a number of Republican politicians in the past. “My own personal hunch is that it’s linked to Silicon Valley," Denton was quoted as saying. Hours before that, the New York Times published an interview in which Gawker founder Nick Denton said he believed the case against Gawker was being funded by an unknown third party. In a statement, CPJ executive director Joel Simon said that while the group supports a person’s right to “seek civil redress in cases of defamation," CPJ doesn’t “support efforts to abuse the process by seeking to punish or bankrupt particular media outlets."įorbes previously reported Thiel’s assistance to Hogan. Thiel has been a major donor to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit advocate of press freedom. “I saw Gawker pioneer a unique and incredibly damaging way of getting attention by bullying people even when there was no connection with the public interest." “It’s less about revenge and more about specific deterrence," Thiel said in the New York Times. Thiel said Gawker published articles that were very painful for those it targeted and many of them didn’t have the resources to fight back so he decided to fund multiple cases, the New York Times reported. In 2009, Thiel told PE Hub Network that one of Gawker’s publications, Valleywag, was the “Silicon Valley equivalent of al-Qaeda." In a post at the time, the website said Thiel’s sexual orientation probably explained his “disdain for convention, his quest to overturn established rules." Thiel has since publicly acknowledged that he’s gay. Gawker and Thiel have a contentious history already the website outed him as gay in 2007.
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