Peter Thiel, Billionaire Tech Investor, Steps Down from Board of Meta

On February 7, 2022, Peter Thiel stepped down from the board of Meta. Thiel is a billionaire tech investor and a co-founder of PayPal.

The renowned contrarian investor is not pursuing re-election to the board but will continue to serve on the board until the annual meeting is held. 

Thiel has been a member of the Facebook board since 2005. Thiel was one of the original investors in Facebook when founder Mark Zuckerberg was still attending Harvard University. 

His investment of $500,000 in thefacebook.com in 2004 made him the first notable outside investor in budding the social network that was gaining traction across universities nationwide. 

Before making his significant investment in Facebook, Thiel gained prominence as a co-founder of PayPal. In addition to his investment, Thiel teamed up with Ken Howery and Luke Nosek in 2005 to create the Founders Fund. This fund has invested in prominent companies such as Airbnb, Lyft, Spotify, and Stripe.

Peter Thiel is chairman and co-founder of Palantir Technologies. This company is focused on big data analytics and has partnered with the U.S. government to track illegal and legal immigrants’ criminal and personal records. 

Thiel is known for expressing contrarian views concerning politics, economics, and culture. He has previously stated, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”

Thiel was one of former President Donald Trump’s most vocal supporters during his 2016 run for the presidency. The technology investor gave a speech supporting Trump at the Republican National Convention in July 2016. 

Although he has been a donor to several Republican candidates such as Ron Paul, Ted Cruz, and Carly Fiorina, Thiel surprised many observers by fully backing Trump towards the end of the Republican presidential primaries. 

Thiel has previously described progressive politicians such as the U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) as “dangerous” for talking about economic issues that matter. 

Peter Thiel has injected over $10 million into a Super PAC that’s backing J.D. Vance, one of the Republican candidates running for Ohio’s U.S. Senate seat in 2022. 

In addition, Thiel has donated $10 million to a Super PAC supporting Blake Masters in his run for Arizona’s U.S. Senate. Masters is the Chief Operating Officer at investment firm Thiel Capital.