Billionaire Peter Thiel says he bankrolled Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker Media because he “thought it was worth fighting back” against an outlet he calls a “singularly bad bully”.
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Gawker founder Nick Denton, who has privately suspected Thiel was behind the lawsuit, fueled the rumor in an interview this week with the New York Times.
In a statement acquired by Bloomberg, Gawker said, “We’ve had bankers engaged for quite some time given the need for contingency planning around Facebook board member Peter Thiel’s revenge campaign”.
The Hulk Hogan-Gawker saga took another surprising turn this week when Paypal founder Peter Thiel revealed that he had bankrolled the wrestler’s lawsuit against the website in retaliation for a 2007 Gawker article outing him. Thiel said that he was doing this because Valleywag, one of Gawker’s blogs, posted a story nearly a decade ago that outed him as being gay, along with other stories that he believes were being unfair and targeting his friends and others. At stake in the legal battle – in which Hogan, financed by Thiel, won a $140 million judgment against Gawker for publishing a private sex video – is the line between privacy and free speech.
On May 25, a judge denied Gawker’s request for a new trial.
Before the decision, the New York-based media outlet had said it planned to bring its case before an appeals court.
The embattled online media company has hired an investment banker to explore its options, including a possible sale. A spokesman for Thiel said Wednesday he would be in touch if Thiel decides to issue a statement on the matter.
Peter Andreas Thiel, a tech entrepreneur, speaks on the final Day of the 2014 Web Summit in the RDS conference center, Dublin, Ireland, November 6, 2014. They also noted that Hogan’s legal team decided not to file a claim that would trigger a payout from Gawker’s legal insurance, which they said struck legal observers as odd.
Hogan had sued the website for posting a one-minute, 41-seconds edited video clip in 2012 featuring him having sex with the wife of his then-best friend, the radio shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge Clem.
“I did discuss his sexuality, but it was known to a wide circle who felt that it was not fit for discussion beyond that circle”, Thomas said.
He also warned that if the case continues, it will expose “gruesome” details of Mr Thiel’s involvement.
He has donated to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a non-profit advocate of press freedom.
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Secretive third-party financings of lawsuits can put media companies at a disadvantage during litigation, said Peter Scheer, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, in an interview Tuesday. “In a way, if I didn’t think Gawker was unique, I wouldn’t have done any of this”. Mr. Thiel said he had not targeted any other media companies.
