Peter Thiel is leaving the board of Meta, greater than 16 years after turning into one among Facebook’s earliest buyers. In a press release, Mark Zuckerberg stated that “we’ve always known that at some point he would devote his time to other interests.” The New York Times reported that these pursuits embody “influencing” the upcoming November midterm elections and “backing candidates who assist the agenda of former president Donald J. Trump.”
“Peter has been a valuable member of our board and I’m deeply grateful for everything he has done for our company — from believing in us when few others would, to teaching me so many lessons about business, economics, and the world,” Zuckerberg stated in a press release. “Peter is truly an original thinker who you can bring your hardest problems and get unique suggestions.”
Thiel has suggested Zuckerberg from the earliest days of Facebook. He joined the board of the social media firm in 2005 after investing $500,000 within the fledgling social community. In a press release, he known as Zuckerberg “one of many nice entrepreneurs of our time.”
The billionaire can be one of many extra controversial members of Meta’s board. After cofounding PayPal, he began Palantir Technologies, a secretive knowledge mining and analytics firm that contracts with quite a few authorities businesses. Thiel’s enterprise capital agency, Founders Fund, was additionally an investor in Oculus founder Palmer Luckey’s digital border wall startup. He additionally funded the multimillion-dollar lawsuit that resulted within the 2016 chapter of Gawker Media.
Most controversially for Facebook and Zuckerberg, Thiel was an early supporter of Trump, and was at a White House dinner in 2019 when Zuckerberg reportedly “came to an understanding” with the president’s staff that Facebook wouldn’t truth test the president. Critics have lengthy questioned Thiel’s place on Meta’s board of administrators given his shut ties to Trump, however Zuckerberg has all the time defended him. In 2016, Zuckerberg instructed workers it was a problem of “diversity” and “standing up for the rights of people with different viewpoints.” (Notably, not each firm insider agreed with Zuckerberg. Netflix CEO and one-time Facebook board member Reed Hastings reportedly instructed Thiel his assist of Trump confirmed “catastrophically bad judgment.”)