Since backing Facebook in 2005, the billionaire was a top confidant to Mark Zuckerberg—he has also consistently shown support for Republican candidates and ideologies.
Peter Thiel is leaving his seat on the board of Meta, Facebook’s parent company, to put his time and money into supporting conservatives in the upcoming midterm elections. Thiel, who founded PalPal and Palantir, has sat on Facebook’s board since 2005, when he gave Mark Zuckerberg half a million dollars and became the company’s first outside investor. Since then, Thiel has been a confidant of Zuckerberg’s, with the New York Times crediting Thiel with Facebook’s decision to allow Trump to remain on the social media platform for as long as he did. In the current cycle, Thiel has doled out $10 million each to Senate candidates Blake Masters of Arizona and J.D. Vance of Ohio, and is also supporting candidates running against Republican lawmakers who voted to impeach Trump.
