PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel says he quietly bankrolled Hulk Hogan’s war against Gawker because he sees the gossip website as a dangerous trend in online journalism.
“It’s less about revenge and more about specific deterrence,” he told the New York Times Wednesday. “I saw Gawker pioneer a unique and incredibly damaging way of getting attention by bullying people even when there was no connection with the public interest.”
Gawker promoted stories that were “very painful and paralyzing for people who were targeted,” he said, adding, “I thought it was worth fighting back.”
Forbes’ Ryan Mac and Matt Drange first reported Tuesday that the billionaire tech giant had secretly financed Hogan’s invasion of privacy lawsuit against the gossip site.
Hogan sued Gawker after it published a surreptitiously recorded sex tape in 2012 featuring the wrestler and his former friend’s now-ex-wife.
Los Angeles-based attorney Charles Harder, who is being funded by the Silicon Valley giant, is representing the former wrestler.
Thiel’s role in the Hogan lawsuit is about much more than money.
In 2007, Gaker outed Thiel in an article titled, “Peter Thiel is totally gay, people.” Gawker has also published stories aimed at his friends and associates.
The site has “ruined people’s lives for no reason,” he told the Times.
Though he was reluctant at first, Thiel said he decided eventually to do something about Gawker.
He waited patiently, funding a small army of lawyers and searching for others who felt victimized by the website.
Biding his time, he waited to build a case big enough to ruin Gawker.
“I can defend myself. Most of the people they attack are not people in my category,” he told the Times. “They usually attack less prominent, far less wealthy people that simply can’t defend themselves.”
When the Hogan sex-tape case appeared, Thiel set his plan in motion.
Gawker has been scrambling ever since.
A jury awarded Hogan a total of $140 million in March. The first ruling awarded the wrestler $115 million. One week later, the jury awarded him an additional $25.1 million in punitive damages.
The release of the video, which was reportedly recorded by the husband of Hogan’s former paramour, resulted in the wrestler splitting with his wife of 25 years, Linda Hogan.
Gawker is on the hook for $15 million, with its founder, Nick Denton, personally responsible for $10 million of that sum. Former Deadspin editor A.J. Daulerio, whose site originally posted the sex tape, owes Hogan $100,000.
On Wednesday, a judge dismissed Gawker’s motion for a new trial in the Hogan case. The judge also threw out requests for a reduction in the jury’s $140 million ruling.
