Billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel has confirmed he is the money man behind Hulk Hogan’s lawsuits against Gawker, as well as other suits against the media company.
Thiel spoke on the record with the New York Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin about his attempt to put Gawker out of business. He spoke with Sorkin days after Sorkin wrote an article full of speculation that Thiel was funding Hulk’s suits.
“It’s less about revenge and more about specific deterrence,” Thiel explained. “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.”
Gawker has published articles outing Thiel as gay and has gone after other figures in its Silicon Valley blog “Valleywag.”
Mr. Thiel said that Gawker published articles that were “very painful and paralyzing for people who were targeted.” He said, “I thought it was worth fighting back.”
The Times also revealed the following:
Mr. Thiel said that he had decided several years ago to set in motion a plan to secretly fund multiple cases to try to cripple Gawker. “I didn’t really want to do anything,” he said. “I thought it would do more harm to me than good. One of my friends convinced me that if I didn’t do something, nobody would.”
Sorkin published an article on Monday that heavily speculated whether or not there was a financial backer funding the Hulkster’s suits against Gawker, which published a private sex video of the wrestling figure. The article pointed to several notable actions by Hogan — such as refusing insurance to get involved and having no interest in a settlement — to him having someone fund his efforts. The article also includes quotes from Gawker Media founder Nick Denton, which state his belief someone from Silicon Valley is funding the suits.
“My own personal hunch is that it’s linked to Silicon Valley, but that’s nothing really more than a hunch,” Denton told Sorkin. “If you’re a billionaire and you don’t like the coverage of you, and you don’t particularly want to embroil yourself any further in a public scandal, it’s a pretty smart, rational thing to fund other legal cases.”
The article also pointed out that a number of suits against Gawker writers have emerged, all from LA-based attorney Charles Harder.
