
Thiel saw their publication of the tape as the opportunity he was looking for. Only later would the world learn that Gawker's demise was not incidental-it had been masterminded by Thiel.įor years, Thiel had searched endlessly for a solution to what he'd come to call the "Gawker Problem." When an unmarked envelope delivered an illegally recorded sex tape of Hogan with his best friend's wife, Gawker had seen the chance for millions of pageviews and to say the things that others were afraid to say. This post would be the casus belli for a meticulously plotted conspiracy that would end nearly a decade later with a $140 million dollar judgment against Gawker, its bankruptcy and with Nick Denton, Gawker's CEO and founder, out of a job.

Thiel's sexuality had been known to close friends and family, but he didn't consider himself a public figure, and believed the information was private. In 2007, a short blogpost on Valleywag, the Silicon Valley-vertical of Gawker Media, outed PayPal founder and billionaire investor Peter Thiel as gay.


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