Gawker lawsuit because Gawker had previously outed him as gay. In 2016, Thiel confirmed that he had funded Hulk Hogan in the Bollea v. Through the Thiel Foundation, Thiel governs the grant-making bodies Breakout Labs and Thiel Fellowship, and funds nonprofit research into artificial intelligence, life extension, and seasteading. He co-founded Valar Ventures in 2010 co-founded Mithril Capital, serving as investment committee chair, in 2012 and served as a part-time partner at Y Combinator from 2015 to 2017. He sold the majority of his shares in Facebook for over $1 billion in 2012, but remains on the board of directors. Earlier, Thiel became Facebook's first outside investor when he acquired a 10.2% stake for $500,000 in August 2004. In 2005, he launched Founders Fund with PayPal partners Ken Howery and Luke Nosek. In 2003, he launched Palantir Technologies, a big data analysis company, serving as its chairman since its inception.

He co-founded PayPal with Max Levchin and Luke Nosek in 1998, serving as chief executive officer until its sale to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion.Īfter PayPal, he founded Clarium Capital, a global macro hedge fund based in San Francisco. He founded Thiel Capital Management in 1996. Secretary of Education William Bennett and as a derivatives trader at Credit Suisse. He worked as a securities lawyer at Sullivan & Cromwell, as a speechwriter for former U.S.

As of May 2022, Thiel had an estimated net worth of $7.19 billion and was ranked 297th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Facebook. Peter Andreas Thiel ( / t iː l/ born 11 October 1967) is a German-American billionaire entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist.

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