Then President-elect Donald Trump, left, with Peter Thiel at a meeting with technology leaders on December 14, 2016. Photo / Getty Images
Then President-elect Donald Trump, left, with Peter Thiel at a meeting with technology leaders on December 14, 2016. Photo / Getty Images
Peter Thiel, one of the longest-serving board members of Meta, the parent of Facebook, plans to step down, the company said today.
Thiel, 54, wants to focus on influencing the US's midterm elections in November, said a person with knowledge of Thiel's thinking who declined to be identified.
Thiel seesthe midterms as crucial to changing the direction of the country, this person said, and he is backing candidates who support the agenda of former president Donald Trump.
Over the past year, Thiel, who has a net worth estimated at US$2.6 billion (NZ$3.9b) by Forbes, has become one of the Republican Party's largest donors. Last year, he gave US$10 million each to the campaigns of two proteges, Blake Masters, who is running for a Senate seat in Arizona, and JD Vance, who is running for Senate in Ohio.
Thiel has been on Meta's board since 2005, when Facebook was a tiny startup and he was one of its first institutional investors. But scrutiny of Thiel's position on the board has steadily increased as the company has become embroiled in political controversies, including barring Trump from the platform, and as the venture capitalist has become more politically active.
Thiel's departure means Meta loses its board's most prominent conservative voice. The board has undergone significant changes in recent years, as many of its members have left and been replaced, often with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. Drew Houston, CEO of Dropbox, joined Facebook's board in 2020, and Tony Xu, founder of DoorDash, joined it last month.
"Peter has been a valuable member of our board and I'm deeply grateful for everything he's done for our company," Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement. "Peter is truly an original thinker who you can bring your hardest problems and get original suggestions."
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Photo / Getty Images
A spokesperson for Thiel said he wasn't available to comment.
Thiel first met Zuckerberg 18 years ago when he provided the entrepreneur with US$500,000 in capital for Facebook, valuing the company at US$4.9 million. That gave Thiel, who with his venture firm Founders Fund controlled a 10 per cent stake in the social network, a seat on its board of directors.
Since then, Thiel has become a confidant of Zuckerberg's. Thiel counselled the company through its early years of rapid user growth and through its difficulties shifting its business to mobile phones around the time of its 2012 initial public offering.
He has also been seen as the contrarian who has Zuckerberg's ear, championing unfettered speech across digital platforms. His conservative views also gave Facebook's board ideological diversity.
In 2019 and 2020, as Facebook grappled with how to deal with political speech and claims made in political advertising, Thiel urged Zuckerberg to withstand the public pressure to take down those ads, even as other executives and board members thought the company should change its position. Zuckerberg sided with Thiel.
Thiel's political influence and ties to key Republicans and conservatives have also offered a crucial gateway into Washington for Zuckerberg, especially during the Trump administration. In October 2019, Zuckerberg and Thiel had a private dinner with Trump.
Facebook and Zuckerberg have long taken heat for Thiel's presence on the board. In 2016, Thiel was one of the few tech titans in largely liberal Silicon Valley to publicly support Trump's presidential campaign.
In 2020, when Trump's incendiary Facebook posts were put under the microscope, critics cited Thiel's board seat as a reason for Zuckerberg's continued insistence that Trump's posts be left standing.
Facebook's ban of Trump's account last year after the January 6, 2021, storming of the US Capitol has become a key rallying point for conservatives who say that mainstream social platforms have censored them.
Vance, who used to work at one of Thiel's venture funds, and Masters, chief operating officer of Thiel's family office, have railed against Facebook. In October, the two Senate candidates argued in an opinion piece in the New York Post that Zuckerberg's US$400 million in donations to local election offices in 2020 amounted to "election meddling" that should be investigated.
Recently, Thiel has also publicly voiced his disagreement with content moderation decisions at Facebook and other major social media platforms. In October at a Miami event organised by a conservative technology association, he said he would "take QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracy theories any day over a Ministry of Truth".
Thiel has also increased his political giving to Republican candidates over the past year. Before the midterms, he is backing three Senate candidates and 12 House candidates. Among those House candidates are three people running primary challenges to Republicans who voted in favour of impeaching Trump for the events of January 6.
