Billionaire tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel is
leaving Meta’s board of directors after more than 15 years.
The PayPal co-founder, who was one of Meta’s first large investors, will not stand for re-election at Meta’s
annual meeting, Meta announced Monday. Meta did not say whether it plans to replace Thiel on the board.
Thiel — who donated $1.25 million to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential
campaign and $10 million in 2021 to groups backing the campaigns of Trump-approved Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters and Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance — plans to focus on influencing
November’s midterm elections in favor of Trump-aligned candidates, according to a New York Times
source.
Last month, Thiel and Donald Trump Jr. co-hosted fundraisers for Harriet Hageman, a Republican primary challenger to Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney.
Thiel, estimated to be
worth about $2.6 billion, is co-founder of venture capital firm Founders Fund, an investor in the right-wing video-sharing platform Rumble, and co-founder and chairman of software firm Palantir,
recently described as “the Microsoft of artificial intelligence” and frequently described as
“secretive.”
In 2018, a whistleblower alleged that Palantir worked on the data that was harvested from 50 million Facebook users’ profiles and allegedly used by
Cambridge Analytica to help target and send pro-Trump messaging during the 2016 presidential election.
Palantir denied doing data work for or having any relationship with Cambridge
Analytica. It subsequently acknowledged having learned that one of its employees had “engaged in a personal capacity” with Cambridge Analytica in 2013 to 2014.
Based on
sources “familiar with the company,” Forbesreported last
week that Thiel’s Founders Fund helped back Boldend, a “cyber warfare” startup whose only client is the U.S. government. Boldend “was reported to have developed a capability to
hack [Meta-owned] WhatsApp, though it was closed off in a security update in January 2021, according to a presentation made to defense giant Raytheo,” according to the report.
Founders Fund also backed facial recognition company ClearView AI, which reportedly compiled a faceprint database by scraping billions of photos from Facebook, Twitter and other
companies, and was said to sell that data to police departments and other agencies and private companies.
Thiel’s relationship with Trump was reportedly strained by
Facebook’s banning Trump from its platforms for at least two years, following the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.
In a statement, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Thiel “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. Peter is truly an original thinker who you can bring your hardest problems and get unique suggestions.”
Thiel’s statement described
Zuckerberg as “one of the great entrepreneurs of our time,” praising his “intelligence, energy and conscientiousness.”
Meta’s 10-member board
“has undergone significant changes in recent years, as many of its members have left and been replaced, often with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs,” noted The New York Times. Its two
newest members are Dropbox CEO Drew Houston and DoorDash founder Tony Xu.
Meta, now focused on becoming a metaverse pioneer, is grappling with fallout after its warning of an advertising
turndown during last week’s Q4 earnings report.