Page 18 - Gawker

Thiel

Born in West Germany and

raised in California, Thiel

became a chess prodigy, an
academic star and a

promising lawyer before settling down in the Bay Area to
found companies and is now estimated to be worth $2.7

billion. In 2006 he became a New Zealand resident and then

in 2011 a New Zealand citizen.

Thiel’s politics are heterodox, but he shares with the

President Trump an aversion to regulation and taxes and a

skepticism about free trade and was President Trump’s

most outspoken supporter in the tech community.

In May 2016 it was revealed that Thiel, who despised

Gawker for writing a series of articles about his friends,

others and about his sexual orientation, said it had “ruined

people’s lives for no reason”. (7) He had funded a team of

lawyers to find and help “victims” of the company’s coverage

and mount cases against Gawker. The Hogan trial was the

perfect opportunity, and Thiel ended up secretly paying the

legal fees for Hogan’s lawsuit some $10m plus on the
proviso that Thiel’s involvement was not disclosed. As Thiel

himself said: "If you're a single-digit millionaire like Hulk

Hogan, you have no effective access to our legal system."

(11) He added that “I would underscore that I don’t expect to

make any money from this. This is not a business

venture.”(7,11,13)