>Thiel steps down
May 25, 2022
Facebook's first big 'angel' investor, billionaire Peter Thiel, is 'stepping down from Meta's board effective immediately' to pursue Trump agenda
Thiel is leaving the board after 17 years to focus on backing Republican candidates JD Vance and Blake Masters for Senate in the upcoming midterm elections
Thiel became Facebook's first outside investor in August 2004 with $500,000
He donated $1.5 million in support of Trump in 2016 and spoke at the RNC
Facebook's first big investor, billionaire Peter Thiel, is reportedly stepping down from Meta's board effective immediately.
Thiel is leaving the board after 17 years to focus on backing Republican candidates JD Vance and Blake Masters for Senate in the upcoming midterm elections.
Meanwhile, Jack Dorsey will reportedly leave Twitter's board of directors today 16 years after co-founding the firm. He is expected to stand down ahead of the $44billion takeover by Tesla magnate Elon Musk. It comes after the entrepreneur stepped down as CEO last fall.
Thiel was scheduled to stand down today - the date of Meta's annual shareholder meeting. He previously announced he would not stand for re-election.
Meta has struggled to recover after a difficult last year for the company, which was battered by whistleblower allegations, a major global service outage, and protests and controversy over its policies. This year's first quarter earnings report was devastating and was followed by a huge drop in stock price.
Thiel, who co-founded Paypal in 1998, will turn his attention to candidates supporting the agenda of former President Donald Trump in the 2022 midterm elections.
Last year, he donated $10 million each to two separate super PACs supporting Republican Senate candidates J.D. Vance in Ohio and Blake Masters in Arizona, according to Politico. Both of them have worked for Thiel in the past.
Thiel gave $1.5 million to pro-Trump organizations during the 2016 election. Last spring, he took Vance to meet Trump at the Mar-A-Lago resort, where the former-president-turned-Republican-kingmaker allegedly gave Vance a 'good-natured ribbing.'
Thiel is worth $2.6 billion, according to Forbes.
Sauce/more: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10854545/Peter-Thiel-stepping-Metas-board.html