Thiel, who is also a founder of a hedge fund and a venture capital
firm and has been on outspoken voice on issues including education, is
no stranger to Gawker. In 2007, it published an article entitled "Peter
Thiel is totally gay, people."
Tech billionaire Thiel backing wrestler Hogan's Gawker lawsuit(Reuters)
Billionaire investor Peter Thiel is helping wrestler Hulk Hogan bankroll his lawsuit against Gawker Media, according to a report in Forbes.
Hogan,
whose real name is Terry Bollea, in March won a $140 million jury
verdict against Gawker in a privacy lawsuit stemming from a sex tape
Gawker had published.
Gawker, a New York-based website specializing in media and celebrity news, is appealing the verdict.
Forbes
reported late Tuesday that Thiel, an early backer of Facebook and a
co-founder of PayPal, had played a lead role in financing the
litigation. A spokesman for Thiel said Wednesday he would be in touch if
Thiel decides to issue a statement on the matter. Gawker declined to
comment.
Thiel, who is also a founder of a hedge
fund and a venture capital firm and has been on outspoken voice on
issues including education, is no stranger to Gawker. In 2007, it
published an article entitled "Peter Thiel is totally gay, people."
Thiel kept mum publicly about his sexuality at the time, but has since said he is gay.
A
longtime supporter of libertarian causes, Thiel recently said he was
backing real estate financier Donald Trump in his bid for president.
"In my experience the freedom to speak, in the view of most libertarians, is not unlimited," said Eugene Volokh, a professor of law at the University of California at Los Angeles, in an email.
"If
Peter Thiel is indeed backing the lawsuit, I assume that he thinks that
disclosing a sex video without the participant's permission is a
violation of the participant's rights - here, a right to privacy."
Gawker
is also facing lawsuits from Shiva Ayyadurai, an entrepreneur who has
made the controversial claim that he invented email, and journalist and
writer Ashley Terrill.
Lawsuits backed by third
parties are not unusual. In most cases, though, they are financial
investments in which backers are motivated by the potential proceeds
from a large damage award.
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.
"There
might be circumstances in which knowing who your real adversary is or
the real party of interest who is making a suit against you may alter
one's perception of the case and strategies for defense," Scheer said.
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