PayPal co-founder and noted libertarian Peter Thiel is reportedly bankrolling Hulk Hogan’s lawsuits against Gawker Media, according to Forbes.
“It is unclear how Thiel became connected to Hogan … or if Thiel, who is worth $2.7 billion by FORBES’ estimates, is the only outside financial backer of the cases against Gawker. It is also unknown whether Thiel will see any of the proceeds won by Hogan in a Florida court. Gawker is currently appealing that ruling,” Ryan Mac and Matt Drange reported, citing anonymous sources “familiar with the situation.”
Hogan, who is being represented by Los Angeles-based attorney Charles Harder, sued Gawker after the gossip news group in 2012 published a surreptitiously recorded sex tape featuring the wrestler and his former friend’s now-ex-wife.
Thiel’s role in the ongoing litigation may be about much more than cash, Forbes suggested.
“Money may not have been the main motivation in the first place. Thiel, who is gay, has made no secret of his distaste for Gawker, which attempted to out him in late 2007 before he was open about his sexuality,” the site reported Tuesday.
“In 2009, Thiel told PEHub that now-defunct Silicon Valley-focused publication Valleywag, which was owned by Gawker, had the ‘psychology of a terrorist.’ ‘Valleywag is the Silicon Valley equivalent of Al Qaeda,’ Thiel said at the time,” the report added.
A jury awarded $140 million to Hulk Hogan in March.
The jury first awarded the wrestler $115 million. One week later, they awarded the wrestler 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, shock jock “Bubba the Love Sponge,” resulted later in the wrestler splitting with his wife of 25 years, Linda Hogan.
The Forbes scoop comes just hours after Gawker founder Nick Denton told the New York Times he had a “hunch” someone in Silicon Valley was funding the lawsuits.
“My own personal hunch is that it’s linked to Silicon Valley, but that’s nothing really more than a hunch,” he said. “If you’re a billionaire and you don’t like the coverage of you, and you don’t particularly want to embroil yourself any further in a public scandal, it’s a pretty smart, rational thing to fund other legal cases.”
The Gawker founder said he began to suspect the lawsuits were funded by a third-party benefactor based on the size of the legal expenses and settlements, and the fact Hogan is not the most financially secure person.
“The answer may be entirely innocent,” he said on whether Hogan has a backer, “but I think in order for people to understand what’s going on here, what the stakes are, I think it’s important that it be out in public, or at least that he’d be asked the question in public.”
Gawker is on the hook for $15 million, and Denton must personally pay $10 million. Former Deadspin editor A.J. Daulerio, whose site originally posted the sex tape, owes Hogan $100,000.
